


With All the Madness In My Soul

by pukeandcry



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Murder, Threesome - M/M/M, implied non-con / abuse, road trip (sort of?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:57:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukeandcry/pseuds/pukeandcry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick would do desperate, terrible things as long as Harry will smile at him afterward, as long as he’ll be near Nick at all. He already <em>has</em> done desperate, terrible things, and he’s loved it, every second. He’ll do more, certainly. (Natural Born Killers AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	With All the Madness In My Soul

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [Reel 1D](http://reel-1d.livejournal.com/) challenge for the prompt based on the movie _natural born killers_ , so please be aware of the warnings for graphic violence, minor character death, murder, implied abuse / non-con... and i guess spoilers for a movie that's 19 years old?
> 
> as always thank you so much to my princess lane for reading this over and encouraging me and basically being the best person in the whole world.

_london_

Nick is not drunk. He’s not even close. He’s got an itch beneath his fingernails, something familiar that keeps coming back like a dog no matter how often he tries to kick it, and he knows that whatever it is, getting pissed isn’t going to help. He’s tried, and it only makes the feeling multiply. Like spores, like insects. Alcohol doesn’t help, and drugs or boys or both only rarely -- whatever it is, it sticks around. It makes his hands restless, and he fiddles with his pint, picking at the chip in the dirty glass idly with the side of his thumb.

He’s used to restlessness.

The bar is almost entirely empty, and Nick only notices the boy sat at the opposite end of the bar once the bloke walks in, the door slamming behind him as he lopes over to the opposite end of the bar and looms over him. The man is tall and a bit rat-faced, menacing in a completely generic way. Nick’s seen a thousand variations on this type, and they’re always so _predictable_ , hot tempered with no intelligence to back it up, patched-together rage that amounts to absolutely nothing. It bores Nick to tears.

The boy he’s looming over, though -- he’s unusual. He’s new. The bar itself is foul, a dark cave of low ceilings and an uneven concrete floor, usually vacant save for a handful of unsavory types, the sort that all start to look the same after a while. This boy, though, he’s something else entirely -- long limbs and sharp angles, but something soft to him as well. He can’t be older than eighteen, nineteen, and his curls tumble messily around his face as he stares down at the bar, avoiding the other man’s eyes. His shirt is ratty and torn a bit around the neck, but he’s still bright and sharp, conspicuously incongruous in the foul room.

Nick puts down his pint and lets himself look, at the boy and the man both. Mostly the boy, if he’s being honest -- something he tries to be, at least with himself.

They’re arguing about something, but it’s low and far away enough that Nick can’t hear what. Actually, it’s the man arguing, still looming and scowling, obviously trying to throw his height around like it ought to be intimidating, and to Nick it just seems desperate and a bit sad. The boy is ignoring him steadfastly, staring down at his hands -- big and wide, with long fingers that taper off almost elegantly, again out of place -- where they’re wrapped around his drink. The man says something sharply, and when it fails to get the boys attention, jerks him rather violently by the shoulder he’s got hunched up near his chin. Unexpectedly, the boy smiles, still looking down. It’s so quick that Nick thinks he’s imagined it for a moment, a sharp flash of something secret, something quiet and just this side of unpredictable and almost violent, that Nick can’t look away -- if he does it again, Nick wants to see.

Distantly, he knows that staring so blatantly is a quick way to make trouble for himself, especially somewhere like this bar, but he can’t find it in himself to stop.

A moment later, the bloke is shouting something foul in the boy’s face -- which remains placid the whole time, neutral in a way that Nick finds vaguely impressive -- and then grabs at him, pulling him up and out of his chair.

The boy glances back to the rest of the room as the other bloke manhandles him, yanking him indelicately by the upper arm towards the back exit. His long legs trail awkwardly behind him as they go, getting caught up on the legs of chairs and nearly knocking one over in his wake.

As they reach the door, the boy turns back and makes eye contact with Nick, the first time he’s done so -- Nick hadn’t been sure the boy had even realized anyone else was in the pub with him. Nick raises his glass a few inches and nods, and the boy just shrugs and smiles again, this time caught somewhere between wry and apologetic, before he’s pulled through the exit sharply, the door shutting solidly behind him as he goes.

-

The boy’s back several nights later. Nick tells himself not to feel a jolt of pleasure when he turns up and sees the boy sitting in that same spot at the end of the bar, but he does anyway.

He’s alone, no sign of the bloke from before, and the bartender keeps disappearing round back for long stretches of time, so it’s just the two of them. Nick resolves to talk to the boy sooner rather than -- he’s not keen on sitting around silently again, staring at strange boys like a lech. He’d much rather do something about it. He’s never been any good at inactivity.

He waits, though, sipping his drink, and before the right moment presents itself, the bloke shows up again. He doesn’t say anything, just leans on the bar next to the boy, mostly blocking Nick’s line of sight, which probably isn’t a bad thing if he doesn’t want to get his teeth knocked out for staring. He doesn’t, incidentally, but he’s still fascinated by this boy despite himself, so he carries on peering at him as best he can.

The boy turns his face up expectantly at the man, waiting for something that Nick can’t figure out what it might be, but the man just whispers a few sharp sentences at the boy -- Nick only catches “any idea what time” and “ought to have” -- before the man scoffs and turns on his heels, out the back door in a few long strides without a backwards glance.

Once he’s sure the bloke’s not coming back, Nick sets his pint down noisily. When the boy doesn’t look up at him, he clears his throat. It takes two more tries before the boy notices him, or at least for him to react, but when he does, he lifts his eyes and stares so directly that it takes Nick a moment to gather himself and sort out what he wants to say.

“S’your boyfriend?” Nick asks eventually, nodding his head towards the door the man left through.

The boy shrugs. “Not, um. Sort of, but. ‘S’not really like that.” His voice is low, deeper than Nick would’ve guessed, and slow. It’s a rather nice voice. It goes well with his face.

“Yeah?” Nick asks, but the boy doesn’t elaborate, just blushes a bit, then smiles and looks down at his hands.

“D’you want another drink?” Nick offers. The bartender’s still off somewhere, but Nick’s got no qualms about going around and getting himself a drink if he needs to, and doubly so if it’s for this too pretty boy, who’s still managing to look so out of place and _not_ all at once.

The boy just shakes his head slowly, and carries on looking down at his folded hands and his nearly empty pint. Nick shrugs. “Suit yourself. The offer stands, though.”

“Thanks,” he says to the flat surface of the bartop, still smiling in an unknowable way.

-

The boy leaves eventually, and Nick hangs about for a bit before slinking out back after his second pint, still sober. The back alley is full of broken pallets and rubbish bins that are knocked over, and he steps around broken glass and scraps of food as he picks through the maze of twisting corridors and alleys towards his flat. It’s easier if he goes round on the main road, more straightforward and less labyrinthine, but this way’s quicker, so he figures it’s a trade-off.

Several doors down from the bar he hears a sound coming from one of the dark corners that branches off between two run-down blocks of flats, and he slows down enough to glance down the alley casually as he passes.

About halfway down the bloke from the bar has the boy shoved up against the brick wall, one hand fisted in his curly hair, the other shoved down the front of his trousers. The boy’s hips are pressing forward, meeting the blokes hand as it jerks erratically, but he’s staring off over the bloke’s shoulder, his eyes locked onto something Nick can’t see from this angle, not without stopping at least.

Nick lets out a small _hmm_ , and although he thinks the boy shouldn’t have been able to hear him across the distance, he still glances over in the next moment. Nick freezes, waits for the boy to shout something at him, telling him to piss off or something, but he doesn’t. He just smiles enigmatically at Nick, the whites of his eyes shining, and then after a moment looks away again, fixing his eyes on the spot just past the bloke’s shoulder.

Nick hesitates for a moment to see if the boy will look back, but when he doesn’t, he forces himself to shake his head, and walk back to his flat, carefully avoiding looking down any more alleys as he goes.

-

Both of them, the boy and his bloke, are back at the pub the next time Nick stops in. Only this time, they’re arguing loudly, or at least the bloke is, shouting all sorts of things at the boy as Nick sits down at the bar. His voice is thin and reedy, filling up the otherwise empty room. The boy, for his part, is again steadfastly ignoring him, which only seems to infuriate the bloke more.

As Nick sits down at the opposite end of the bar, he thinks maybe the bloke will stop now that there’s an audience -- they’d been the only two there until Nick had come in, no sign of even the bartender. But the bloke carries on, working himself up into enough of a rage that his rat-like face starts to go red.

Nick tries to ignore it, assuming he’ll eventually tire himself out, but after several minutes with the bloke showing no sign of stopping, he thinks he might not have a choice but to involve himself. The thought doesn’t necessarily upset him.

“Look at me when I’m talking,” the bloke says, and when the boy doesn’t, the bloke grabs him hard, one hand fisting the collar of the boy’s shirt and the other yanking his chin so hard that his neck jerks. Nick winces and looks away.

“Alright,” he says firmly. He stares at himself in the cracked mirror that hangs behind the bar instead. His hair’s starting to go flat, and his fingers are white where he’s flexing them. “That’s enough.”

His voice startles the bloke, apparently, and he turns away from the boy slowly to glare at Nick.

“Don’t reckon this concerns you, mate,” the bloke says.

“Actually,” Nick says steadily, swiveling to meet his gaze, “I reckon it does.”

The bloke lets go of the boy where he’s got him by the collar and turns to Nick, taking a few steps closer.

“Fuck off,” he says, flexing his hands and puffing out his thin chest in a way that’s obviously meant to be intimidating.

Nick stands up to his full height, and he hopes this areshole tries to hit him, _God_ , he does, because it’ll be the absolute most satisfying thing in the world to watch him try it, expect Nick to fold in like crumpled paper, and then go from smug to surprised in an instant when Nick decks him, leveling him on the dirty concrete floor. Nick can see it playing out behind his eyes like a film, and he has to keep himself from laughing in anticipation.

“See, that’s actually what I was going to say. Seems like you’re bothering him, and you’re _definitely_ bothering me, so why don’t you fuck off and leave us to our drinks?” He ignores the fact that he hasn’t actually got a drink yet, choosing to consider it artistic license.

The man glares some more, widening his stance and obviously not intending to go that easily. “What’d you say to me?”

“D’you have a problem with your hearing as well as your manners?” Nick asks. He can feel his pulse narrowing, speeding up, and the fingers in his right hand tense into a fist as the man walks a few steps deliberately closer. “You must, I think.”

The bloke jumps at that, knocking over a stool as he makes for Nick, and Nick closes his eyes for just an instant, savoring the moment before it happens. The bloke swings wildly at him and misses by a mile, too far away still, but before he can get close enough to Nick to make contact, the bartender appears, getting between the two of them in a flash. He gets a hand on the bloke’s collar, yanking him hard away from Nick and saying something firmly to him, but Nick can’t hear it, his ears swimming slightly. Nick hadn’t expected that -- he’d fully expected to break the bloke’s nose against the surface of the bar at the very least, and the change in the script throws him. By the time he reorients himself, the bloke’s slamming out the front door, still angry, but he doesn’t look back as he goes.

“Don’t pull that shit in here, yeah?” the bartender’s saying to him, already back behind the bar and pulling a cigarette out of his pack to tuck behind his ear. He shoves up his sleeves, showing off dark swirls of tattoos on his forearms. “I know he started it, but I don’t give a fuck, I’ll toss you both out next time.” 

Nick nods easily enough, folding himself back down into his seat.

“And you...” he says to the boy, his voice going from rough to something like sad so quickly that Nick frowns, confused. The boy just opens his eyes wide, looking innocent, and the bartender sighs, like there’s a conversation going on silently between the two of them, an old one that by this point doesn’t need to be said out loud.

“I know,” the boy says. “Sorry, Zayn.”

The bartender just sighs again, pours the two of them drinks without being prompted, and heads for the back again, lighting his cigarette before he’s even halfway to the door.

Nick hadn’t known the bartender’s name is Zayn, even though he’s here most of the nights Nick is. Nick hadn’t realized the boy had known, either. The two of them sit in silence for a while, still at opposite ends of the bar. Nick wonders what else he doesn’t realize.

“Your boyfriend’s charming,” he finally says. The boy snorts out a laugh.

“‘S’not my boyfriend, I told you.”

“Well, whatever he is. Right twat.” Nick still feels a bit cheated that he hadn’t got to deck him.

“Trust me,” the boy says after a moment, “I know.” He takes another sip of his pint, audible in the otherwise silent room.

“Okay,” Nick says, gesturing for the boy to come sit near him. “C’mon and tell me about it, then.”

The boy peers at him curiously, but after a moment he stands up, carrying his drink with him, and lowers himself into the seat next to Nick.

“Mostly he can’t stand me,” he says once he’s sat down, laughing mostly humorlessly.

“How d’you know that?” Nick asks.

The boy squints at him, like the answer is obvious. “Well, he tells me enough, t’start with.” He pauses to take a sip from his pint, the long column of his pale throat working delicately as he swallows. “I know how it looks, but, like. He’s got more money than you’d think.” He shrugs, like _what can you do about it_. “Takes care of me, so...” he trails off. “I, like. Owe him.”

“Nah,” Nick says, quieter than he means to be as he shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

The boy turns fully to look at him at that, drawing in his eyebrows curiously as a smile quirks on his lips. “What doesn’t?”

“Anything,” Nick says vaguely. “What’s your name?” He’s got more to say, but first, he thinks, he wants to know that much at least. The boy makes him want to keep talking, makes Nick want to find little bits of himself to give him, and he wants to at least know his name before he’s too far into something he can’t stop.

“Harry,” the boy says, still staring at Nick intensely. Nick holds his gaze, looks back just as steadily, because a long time ago he taught himself to never be the one to blink first. Most people look away within seconds. Harry doesn’t, though.

“What I mean, Harry,” he says, twisting his pint around in a slow circle, “is that it doesn’t work like that -- owing someone, or whatever -- because we’re all on our own, yeah? Every last one of us sad masses trudging along.” He walks his fingertips along the sticky bar as if to illustrate his point, pausing for a moment; he half expects Harry to look away, but he just carries on peering at him curiously, like he’s interested in hearing what Nick’s got to say. “‘S’just you you’ve got. No one else.”

“That’s a bit depressing, isn’t it?” Harry asks.

“No,” Nick says, shaking his head. “Not at all. Because if it’s just you, yeah, no one can ever own that. The things you do, the things you’ve got, they’re all yours. That’s brilliant, innit? Freeing, and all that.” Nick thinks so, at least, and unexpectedly finds himself hoping rather a lot that Harry understands his meaning -- he sort of desperately wants Harry to understand.

Harry smiles and draws his eyebrows together at the same time, giving him a look of agreeable curiosity. Nick thinks he’ll take that. “‘S’not what he says,” Harry says.

“He’s wrong, then. You can’t owe anyone anything unless you want to.” He takes a drink, trying to sort out what he means in words. “‘S’like. He gives you food and money, I suppose, yeah? A place to stay?”

Harry nods.

“And you give him... things in return, right?”

Harry nods again, exactly the same way, easy and open and honest.

“But, like. See, he does it because he wants something, yeah? Not out of the goodness of his heart, or anything.” He feels the restlessness creeping up again, making his fingers twitch, and he tries to quiet it, flex his fingers enough to exorcise the need to move, because he wants Harry to hear this, he needs Harry to know. “Greed doesn’t deserve anything in return,” he says slowly. “The more he thinks he deserves you, the less he does.”

Harry’s still peering at him, wide eyes soft and open, an almost rapt expression on his face.

Nick feels almost frantic, like he’s reaching the apex of a roller coaster and is about to plunge off the other side into something free-floating and unmoored. He’s got the sense that Harry’s almost there with him, and he wants to grab him, pull him over the edge. “There’s just you, and the things you do, and if you do get tied up with someone else -- it’s not from greed, or obligation, none of that shit matters. It’s ‘cos of the complete opposite of all that.” He lets his hands fall down at his sides.

“Okay,” Harry says slowly, like he’s working that over. “So what’s the opposite of all that, then?”

Nick shrugs, and smiles, feeling something around them click quietly into place. “Love, obviously.”

-

Nick doesn’t mean to come back. Or at least, he doesn’t mean to come back to look for Harry specifically, now that he’s said his bit, because that should be all -- he can go back to ignoring him, sit alone and have a drink in peace. And if not, there are plenty of other filthy pubs in dodgy areas he can get a drink at, plenty where he can go and sit alone, or possibly find someone stupid and pissed enough to either fuck or goad into trying to start a fight with him, whichever is easiest. Nick’s found that it’s actually quite easy to manipulate drunk people who fancy themselves tough into antagonizing him. Possibly there’s something about his face that just calls for roughing up, or at least an attempt at it. 

But he goes back to the bar anyway, looking for Harry before he can help it, and then goes back again. Harry’s not there the first two nights, and Nick sits quietly and drinks alone and goes home without incident, the itch in his fingers staying gone just long enough for him to do so.

One the third night, Harry’s there when Nick shows up, alone, with a dark split healing in the corner of his lower lip. It curls up in a grin when he sees Nick anyway, unflinching, and he comes over to sit next to Nick immediately.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” Harry says, the edge of his hand resting just beside Nick’s, nearly brushing. Nick knows it’s deliberate, but it makes his stomach twist sweetly anyway.

-

“You don’t owe him,” Nick reminds him when he sees him the next week. It’s almost a habit now, Harry shows up every few nights, sitting next to Nick and having a pint. The bloke hasn’t showed up again yet, but Nick reckons he must still be around -- tonight there’s a new mark on Harry’s cheekbone, scraped raw with an undercurrent of a sickly yellow bruise blooming beneath it. “D’you not believe what I told you?”

Harry laughs once, loud and startling and breathtaking. “I do,” he says, voice low and gravelly. Nick wants to grab the sound of it out of the air and hold it in his palm. “He’s not as easy to convince, though. ‘S’got some pretty firm ideas.”

“You don’t love him, though,” Nick says, feeling obvious and frustrated. Harry _understands_ , Nick knows he does, but he’s not doing anything with that, and it makes Nick feel restless all over again.

“‘Course not,” Harry says easily.

“You don’t want to stay with him?”

“No,” Harry agrees again.

“You could get rid of him then.”

“He finds me,” Harry explains.

“Get rid of him _better_ ,” Nick says firmly. It’s so _simple_ , he thinks. If only Harry would understand how simple it is. “Get rid of him so he can’t find you.”

Harry considers him, takes even longer than usual to answer. When he does his voice is the same, pitched low, deliberate and deep. “I couldn’t, I don’t think,” he finally says. “It’d have to be someone else.”

The moment that stretches between them at that, delicate and crystalline but becoming thicker and more solid as it goes on, makes Nick’s chest swell, his heart beat with excitement. Harry _understands_.

“Someone else,” Nick repeats. “You’ve got anyone in mind?”

Harry shrugs. “A friend, I suppose.”

“Mm,” Nick says. “What about your funny sense of debt, though? If your friend helped you out and got rid of him? Wouldn’t you just owe this friend and be right back where you started?”

Harry smiles widely at that, like he’s been expecting Nick to say it. “Not if it was, y’know. Like you said, not if it was the opposite. Not if it was _love_.” He says the word slowly and carefully, turning it over in his mouth as if he likes the way it feels. “D’you know what I mean?”

Nick smiles back, and gestures for the bartender to bring them each another pint. “I think I do,” he says, and he does, he does, he _does_.

-

When he leaves the bar that night, out the front exit this time instead of through the back alleys, Harry follows him silently, trailing a few paces behind him easily like it’s a long-standing arrangement. Nick pauses once they set off down the deserted street to see if Harry will catch up to walk beside him, but he doesn’t, stays just behind Nick, following his lead.

“‘S’not far,” Nick tells him, nodding in the general direction of his flat. Harry just nods in agreement, like he’s walked this path a dozen times before, and smiles as he curls into his worn jacket, drawing his shoulders up around his ears. There’s a chill in the air, something damp and creeping that Nick likes -- it makes him feel alert, and a bit dangerous. Harry’s skin glows pale in the flickering light of the street lamps, and he looks perfectly at ease.

“Isn’t it a bit risky, trusting strange blokes like me?” Nick asks as they walk.

Harry just laughs at him. “What would you know about it?” he asks. “Aren’t I the expert in trusting blokes I oughtn’t, anyway?” He looks entirely unfazed, like it hasn’t even occurred to him that Nick’s question probably could be heard a bit threateningly, even though Nick knows he has no intentions to hurt Harry at all. Exactly the opposite, actually -- the only one he’s any worry to is this bloke of Harry’s, or anyone else who might hurt him, because Nick knows, had known immediately that Harry is his to protect, his alone, debtless and permanent. Like fate.

Harry might not know that, though, not yet at least. Nick can’t see how he would. But Harry still follows him anyway, sure and trusting like he’s seen the future written down and knows that it’s alright for him to keep walking off into the darkness.

Nick thinks Harry might be even more fascinating than he’d originally thought.

When they reach Nick’s building, he leads them up the foul stairs to his floor, unlocking his flat and gesturing Harry inside. It’s clean and mostly bare, and dark, but Harry reaches for the switch instinctively like he’s done it a hundred times before.

-

Harry doesn’t go back to the bar. Instead he stays in Nick’s flat while Nick goes round once or twice, but after that even Nick stays away. Harry’s bloke has apparently been looking for him, leveling threats at anyone he thinks might know where Harry’s gone. The bartender -- Zayn, Nick remembers -- had told him, and looked at Nick just slightly too suspiciously.

“Wherever Harry’s gone,” he’d said to Nick, “I hope he’s got someone better than that twat looking after him.”

Nick had wanted to tell him yes, he did, he _does_ , but it’s still his secret, for now, something he’s holding softly in his chest, keeping it all to himself, Harry wrapped up in a quilt in his flat, happy and shirtless and humming along to the record player. So instead he smiles, and nods at Zayn, and when he pays for his tab, he thinks it’s time, and knows that afterward, neither of them will be able to come back.

-

It’s quick, in the end. It’s easy -- almost too much so. Nick makes some phone calls before, gets an old mate to call in a favor on his behalf so that everything can be arranged, afterward. Harry hasn’t got any identification so they pay for all new ones, a passport and a driver’s license. Harry writes down HARRY STYLES in neat capital letters on a slip of paper for Nick, and Nick is sure that’s not his actual surname, but -- but the day he gets his new passport, it is. He’s Harry Styles now.

Nick shoves an old candle he finds in a kitchen drawer into a piece of angel cake that night. “Happy birthday, Harry Styles,” he says, and even though it’s not February 1st, the day listed on all of Harry’s new papers, Nick thinks this is more Harry’s birthday than anything else.

-

He’s not sure if Harry will come with, when it happens, until he’s leaving, and Harry’s pulling on his worn out trainers and jacket and following Nick out of the flat.

“He’s still looking for me, I’ve heard,” he says as they walk through the foggy streets.

“Who’ve you heard it from?” Nick asks, but Harry just shrugs enigmatically.

“You don’t have to come along, y’know,” he says after a while, but Harry just grins, his teeth glinting white in the light from the streetlamps.

“I know,” he says, smiling sweet and wicked. “I want to.”

-

“Surprise,” Harry whispers to the bloke, once they’re inside his flat. Harry’s looming over where the bloke’s sleeping -- they’d let themselves in with Harry’s key, it’d all been so absurdly _easy_ \-- and once he gets his eyes open, realizes what’s going on, he moves to sit up angrily, but before he can, Harry dodges out of the way, and Nick presses the man flat on his back again, pinning him down easily, hand shoved over the man’s face, blocking off his mouth. He thrashes around, so Nick pulls his fist back and smashes it into his face, thrilling at the sick crunch of his nose collapsing, the warm trickle of blood that comes out of it. The man goes woozy after a few blows, stops fighting Nick, and that’s when Nick fits his hands around the man’s neck, letting his long fingers splay elegantly over the bloke’s windpipe as he starts to press in, unrelenting.

“You found me,” Harry singsongs from behind Nick as the bloke tries to struggle. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to come back?” he asks, and then he laughs, moving in closer to run his own hands over Nick’s where they’re crushing the bloke’s windpipe. He’s still laughing as the bloke falls still, his eyes shutting.

-

“You know we’ve got to go away now,” Nick says to Harry when they’re back at his flat, wrapped up on Nick’s bed with the duvet pulled snugly over their heads like a clean white cave. “For real. Somewhere far off enough that by the time they sort this out, we’ll be untouchable.”

He’s not stupid. He knows they’ll likely sort it out eventually, the police, Scotland Yard, whoever it’ll be -- that part doesn’t bother him. He’d just rather that once they do, he and Harry be as far away as possible.

“I know,” Harry says easily, agreeably.

“Where shall we go?” Nick asks. “Where would you like me to take you?”

Harry considers it. “Mm. America, I think.”

“America’s rather big, yeah? Anywhere in particular?” Nick finds that he’s quite prepared to agree to whatever Harry suggests.

Harry just yawns, though, eyes drifting closed lazily like a kitten. “Surprise me,” he murmurs contentedly, nuzzling sleepily further into the covers of Nick’s bed.

-

It’s still dark the next morning when they arrive at the airport, their hastily packed bags slung over their shoulders. Harry’s got a beanie jammed over his curls, and he looks utterly at peace, even in the eerie glow of the terminal at four in the morning.

Nick buys them tickets on the next flight to the states, not even bothering to make note of where it will take them.

“He deserved to die,” Harry says quietly as they wait to board. He sounds sure of it, and soft, no hint of remorse in his voice -- more than anything he just sounds _happy_ , and he leans in closer to Nick to grin at him.

Nick smiles back, reaching an arm around his shoulder and pulling him in closer. He doesn’t need to be convinced.

-

When they’re above the clouds, Harry turns to Nick with a curious look in his eye. “Why d’you think we found each other?” he asks, curling into Nick’s arm happily.

Nick considers it. He looks at Harry, and then past him, out the window and down where London is receding beneath them, blanketed by a layer of gray. He can’t see it, can’t see the city or any of the things still left in it, the broken bits and layers of grime and their fingerprints everywhere. It’s all so small beneath them, turning into nothing at all.

“I suppose it was probably fate,” Nick finally says.

“Fate,” Harry repeats. He’s quiet for a bit, like he’s thinking it over, but then he says it again, “fate,” and this time he’s agreeing.

 

\--------------------

 

_missouri_  
_oklahoma_  
_kansas, colorado, new mexico_

“Nobody knows it was us,” Harry pouts. His bare feet are propped up on the dashboard of the car -- of _their_ car. Nick loves their car. It’s stolen, so they’ll have to abandon it eventually, and the thought makes him inordinately sad. But there’s no public transit in the middle of the Great Plains, obviously, just miles and miles of open freeway and country roads and so much open sky, so as soon as they’d arrived, Harry’d picked out a car -- this car, their car now. It’s vintage, cherry red under a layer of dust kicked up by the road and the wind, low and wide with a crank-down top, and even though it feels like everything inside of it is flipped, on the wrong side, Nick’s willing to overlook that bit, because it’s _theirs_. He doesn’t know the first thing about cars, but he knows he likes this one, feels like it’s been theirs all along, just waiting for them to nick it out of a nearly-empty car park in front of a run-down supermarket outside of St. Louis where it’d been left idling. He wonders if it’s normal to form an emotional attachment to that sort of thing.

“Generally that’s a good thing, Haz, when you’ve murdered someone.” Nick doesn’t think that ought to need saying, but Harry clearly has his own set of rules for everything.

It’d been in the news, although just in a passing mention, two lines stuck in one of the local papers back home. Apparently junkies without family get murdered enough in London that it’s hardly news when it happens. They’d never have seen it if Harry hadn’t been checking for it since they landed, refreshing an assortment of news sites on his mobile over and over, frowning in something like disappointment. Two days ago he’d finally spotted a write-up on it while Nick had been pulling them up to a fast food restaurant’s window, and whooped so loud Nick had almost dropped their milkshakes.

He’s less excited now, though, chewing his lip in a pathetic way.

“I want them to know,” Harry says with a pout.

“Who?” Nick asks.

“Everyone,” Harry breathes out dreamily.

“Tell them, then,” Nick says with a shrug, shifting gears and pushing his sunglasses up where they’ve started to slip down his nose. “Call up the Sun and tell ‘em you want to sell your story. ‘I Was A Teenage Murderer’ or summat, they’ll eat it up.” Nick isn’t worried about being caught. If anything, he’s worried about getting bored. It’s been a week now since they’ve landed in the states, and besides pinch the car that first day, all they’ve done is drive and drive. They stayed three nights in St. Louis after they’d arrived, took the car, and they’ve been driving since then, picking idly west towards nothing at all in particular. Harry’d sent them veering north at first, and then they’d dipped south again, and by the time they’d gotten to Oklahoma, Nick had given up on the map entirely, instead only turning when it struck one of them.

“Maybe I will,” Harry muses, gazing out over the fields that are rolling by, bronze and gold in the sun that’s starting to cut horizontally through the sky. He crosses and recrosses his feet. “Are we stopping soon?” he asks Nick.

“If you like, love,” Nick tells him. There’d been a sign a few miles back, a turn off with a motel and a diner, and sure enough after a few minutes Nick spots it, a bright neon arrow pointing at small oasis of lights and sounds in the middle of the vast fields.

-

Harry does tell them. He doesn’t mention it to Nick before he does, but two days later he hears Harry on his mobile, talking to someone around a grin that stretches his whole mouth to the very edges. Nick’s on the patio off their motel room, a concrete slab with four deep cracks running through it just outside of the sliding glass door. It looks out over a gas station and a restaurant, and beyond that, the wide, vast space of dirt and grass and further off, rolling hills, the inorganic straight cut of the highway the only interruption. Harry’s voice inside is a low, happy murmur, and Nick squints out over the expanse in front of him, runs his bare feet over the crack in the concrete, before tugging the door open.

“He deserved it, that’s why,” Harry’s saying when Nick steps back into the room. He pauses and waits, and Nick hasn’t any idea who he’s got on the other end of the phone line, but he imagines that whoever it is must be at least sort of convinced that Harry’s not lying, since they haven’t hung up yet. Nick wonders if Harry’s recited some of the details of what they’d done to the bloke back in London to convince whoever it is he’s talking to. The thought of it sends a thrill through Nick, and he creeps up behind Harry quietly, resting his chin on the bare curve of his shoulder.

“Anyone else?” Harry repeats, and pauses, twisting his neck to peer at Nick, his eyes brilliant and wild. He smiles and leans down to lick a stripe across Nick’s chin, biting down just slightly at his jaw when he’s finished, and then turns his attention back to the phone. “No,” he says to the person on the other end. “Not yet, anyway.”

-

More papers in London pick up the story, run the headline of the murderous duo who left the country only to call home to confess their crimes. They find out their names and run pictures of them -- a terrible old shot of Nick that he can’t imagine how they’ve found, and one of Harry at the seaside on holiday from years before. It must be old, because his arms are bare in it, and he hasn’t got any of his tattoos.

It thrills Nick, and he can tell it thrills Harry as well. He keeps track of it all, showing Nick any bits of press he finds about them, smiling giddily as he does. It’s amazing, Nick thinks, all those people knowing what he’d done to that bloke who’d deserved it. He runs through the details of it at night before he falls asleep, remembering the way the man had jerked and then fallen still, the way Harry had laughed, the peaceful, uninterrupted night’s sleep he’d gotten afterward. He thinks the memory is the most beautiful one he’s got, and holds it in close.

-

The first gun Harry finds in the trunk of the stolen red convertible, just a few days after they pick it up in St. Louis. “Oh, wicked,” he’d whispered as he loaded their bags into the car as they’d been leaving a motel. He’d leaned down and straightened up a moment later, holding an old revolver, wrapped up carefully in a dirty handkerchief.

“D’you have any idea how to use that?” Nick had asked him.

Harry had grinned, and it’d been more dangerous and more gorgeous than the actual gun he’d been holding.

“I’ll figure it out,” he’d said, pointing it across the car park carefully, closing one eye as he did. It hadn’t been aimed at anything, just the emptiness at the end of the concrete. “You and me, we’ll learn.”

-

The day after they leave the motel in Oklahoma where Harry’d called in his confession -- the thought of which makes Nick want to laugh into the empty air all around them, an empty two-lane highway with only fence posts and distant hills to hear him, to listen to the absurd idea that he’s killed someone, and told about it afterward, and they’re still alone and wild and free, god, it makes him want to laugh -- Harry tells him to keep driving into the night, far later than they usually would’ve stopped for the night.

“Pull off here,” he says eventually, leaning over the space between them so he can whisper it in Nick’s ear. His seat belt is stretched taut across his chest, pulling the neck of his shirt down, and the way he looks in the moonlight makes Nick want to bite his collarbones until he cries out.

They wind up on top of a bluff, the flat hollow of a valley spreading out beneath them, the sound of crickets drifting up and surrounding them like a cloud.

“What’re we doing here?” Nick asks as he shuts off the car, the headlights flickering out so that the only light is the moon, full and bright above them.

Harry just smiles at him, teeth bright in the moonlight. “Practicing.”

“Practicing what?” Nick asks, but Harry doesn’t answer, just tumbles graceless out of the car and lopes around back to open the trunk. When he slams it shut again, he’s got two guns out, a handgun and a pistol, one in each hand.

“Practicing these,” he says softly. “I want --” He pauses and cocks a hip against the car, trying to sort out of the right words. “I want to be ready,” he finally settles on. Nick doesn’t ask what he wants to be ready for -- anything, probably.

So instead he follows Harry up to the top of the hill, kicking at clods of dirt as he goes. Harry folds his legs up and sits, and sets to loading the guns.

“D’you know what you’re doing?” Nick asks.

Harry waves his hand dismissively. “Looked it up,” he says, which is distinctly not an answer.

He must, though, because he moves through it confidently, his long fingers unusually graceful as they open the chambers and load in the rounds, long and sleek over the steel, shutting them both with a _click_.

“You go first,” he says to Nick when he’s finished, holding the pistol out to him handle first.

Nick stares at it, considering, before finally taking it. It feels odd, somehow strange and familiar all at once, like someone he’d used to know but whose name he’s forgotten.

“You can’t laugh if I’m rubbish,” he warns Harry, standing up. His hand doesn’t shake as he aims across the field at a low copse of shrubs. He’s squeezing the trigger before he even realizes it’s happening.

He tries not to make a sound but lets out a small little gasp anyway, the vibrations of the shot ringing in his ear and traveling up his arm. He shoots three more times, each hitting more or less the same spot on the shrubs, and the feeling just gets stronger, louder.

“You now,” he finally tells Harry. But he’s already got the second gun out, pointed at the same spot Nick had aimed for. His hips are cocked and his tongue pokes through his teeth as he squints, concentrating, before he shoots. It goes slightly wide, sending up a plume of dust when it hits the ground, but he tries again, each time a bit closer.

By the time Harry’s halfway through his ammunition, Nick is spectacularly hard. His own gun is still held loosely in his hand, hanging beside his leg, and he suddenly needs to put his hands on Harry, needs to do it as soon as humanly possibly. The long line of him, his loose shirt and tight trousers lit up by the thin blue moonlight, brow furrowed in concentration as he takes aim across a vast empty meadow, is too much for Nick.

He tries to make himself focus, raises his own gun back up to squeeze off the rest of his shots, aiming for the same spot with moderate success, but then both of them are out of bullets, and the lack of sound rings loudly in the air. Nick tosses his own gun to the dirt and strides over to Harry in two long steps. His own gun clatters down as well, and in an instant Nick has Harry’s trousers open, wrapping his long fingers around his cock, just as hard as Nick’s.

“Jesus, Nick,” Harry gasps, wrapping his arms around Nick’s neck and hanging limply as Nick wanks him off in short, sharp jerks.

“You’re good,” Nick says, “you’re so good,” and he’s not even sure what he means but he wants Harry to hear, wants him to know it while he pants and falls apart under his hand, coming hot between them with a groan and a whine.

“We’ll have to practice more, obviously,” Harry gasps into his neck once he’s collected himself.

Nick nods, but he doesn’t respond, too distracted by the pluck of Harry’s long fingers undoing the buttons on his jeans, the dark smell of smoke and gunpowder wrapping around them both like a blanket.

-

The funny thing about having a gun, Nick slowly realizes, is that once you have the first one, the rest come easy. Three days later, Harry brazenly shoves the barrel of the revolver against the base of a man’s neck at a nearly-empty gas station. The man’s huge and hulking and Harry doesn’t look even slightly perturbed, walking silent and easy across the gravel of the parking lot until he’s right behind the man.

“What the fuck,” the man says, twisting around to see what’s happening, but Harry just shoves the muzzle of the gun into his neck even harder, pushing the man forward so he stumbles against his pickup truck. His hat falls off, revealing a balding head.

“Hey, pal,” Harry says. Nick starts to walk cautiously towards him, because he’s not sure where Harry’s going with this, but he’s certainly curious to find out. He knows for a fact there aren’t any bullets in the gun, which is an interesting factor. “Would you mind opening the car? I quite fancy those.” He nods at the back window, and Nick can see a cache of weapons in plain view, several rifles and shotguns, plus a few knifes. It’s funny how well armed the man is, and yet he’s still got his hands in the air for Harry, who’s pointing an empty gun he barely knows how to shoot.

“Any money if you’ve got it,” Nick adds, because they might as well do this properly.

The man doesn’t respond at all, just fishes his keys out of his front pocket and tries to hand them backwards to Harry.

“Give ‘em to him,” Harry instructs, nodding towards Nick, who walks closer and takes them. Harry keeps the man pressed silently against the truck while Nick retrieves everything inside of it, stowing it in the boot of their own. He fishes a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a candy bar out of the glove box for good measure.

“Right, thanks mate,” Harry says happily, stepping away once Nick’s finished. “Lay down on the ground now, if you don’t mind. There you go.” The man goes face down easily, and Harry nudges his arms with the toe of his boot until they’re folded behind his head. “Count to a hundred and stay there, alright?” He grins happily, still pointing the empty revolver as he nearly skips back to their car and hops over the door into his seat.

Nick starts the engine, but before he can pull away, Harry leans in and whispers “Hold on, pull up next to him,” so Nick pivots around so they’re alongside the man, still face down.

“I didn’t introduce myself,” Harry calls to the man. “That’s Nick Grimshaw, and I’m Harry Styles. Remember that, yeah? Go on, repeat it.”

“Nick Grimshaw,” the man says through a thick accent, voice muffled by the dirt. “Harry Styles.” 

“Beautiful,” Harry calls back, beaming, and then turns to Nick. “You ready?”

-

Nick wonders. He wonders quietly, because they don’t talk much about the bloke back in London, at least not directly, although it’s always there, the force driving them further and further down the road. So he wonders by himself, finds that he doesn’t want to break the spell of it, doesn’t want to inadvertently spoil it all by trying to say it in clumsy, ineffectual words, but he wonders all the same -- he wonders if there’ll be another.

And eventually he finds out.

They’re stopped at a diner, a massive old thing that looks straight out of a film, all chrome and neon signs and slices of pie. They’ve been there for nearly an hour, and Nick’s idly nursing the last dregs of his coffee while Harry plays with the enormous jukebox in the corner. Nick’s twisting the mug around, occupying himself by tearing up little scraps of napkin. More than that, though, he watches the table of two men that are sat halfway down the restaurant, directly between him and Harry, because they’ve been watching Harry conspicuously for the last ten minutes.

When the last customer besides the two of them -- an old woman with a plastic rain bonnet over her hair despite the lack of clouds -- pays her bill and leaves, Nick sets down his coffee deliberately. Nobody’s moved, Harry still flipping between records, but there’s tension in the air, suddenly. Nick’s not surprised when a moment later one of the two men shoves his chair away from his table and makes his way slowly across the room towards Harry, pushing up the sleeves of his dirty work shirt as he goes.

Harry must notice, but he ignores the man until he’s just behind him, serenely focused on the jukebox.

“Y’gonna play somethin’?” the man drawls to Harry. He’s not tall, shorter than Harry by a nearly head, but he’s squat and stocky, and there’s something oily and foul about him that’s set Nick’s teeth on edge from the moment they’d walked in.

“Yep,” Harry says, not looking up from the glass.

The man sidles up right next to him, peering at Harry’s face. “You sound like you’re not from around here,” he says. Nick can’t help but roll his eyes at the terrible cliche -- there’s nothing terribly surprising about it, the truck driver who fancies himself a proper tough cowboy, but it’s still painful and more than a bit embarrassing to watch.

Harry turns to him at that, cocking a hip against the jukebox. He’s got his tightest jeans on, and his loose shirt falls low down his collarbones, the tips of the birds’ wings peeking through, and he looks conspicuously out of place -- Nick suspects it’s probably on purpose, to some degree. There’s something coy about the expression he’s got on -- he glances down at the floor a few times before looking at the man’s face, smiling almost flirtatiously, and Nick can already guess where this is going -- he knows what sort of things happen when Harry looks like he’s at his most innocent.

“How could you tell?” he asks sweetly, drawing out his accent almost comically. The bloke falls for it, inevitably.

“Well,” he says, pulling off his baseball cap to reveal his thinning hair before putting it back on again. “Saw you and your boyfriend over there and figured you must not be, since we don’t get a lot of your sort around here.”

“Oh, him?” Harry asks, nodding over at Nick, still the picture of wide eyed innocence. The man nods, just on the edge of menacing.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Harry says sweetly, and honestly, he could go into a career in acting if this whole life of crime thing doesn't pan out, because it’s so perfectly executed -- the right line, the appropriate contradiction, but just the hint of emphasis on the front of the sentence -- _he’s_ rather than _boyfriend_ getting the brunt of the denial.

“Is that so,” the man asks, and Nick honestly can’t tell if he’s trying to intimidate Harry or pick him up himself -- he thinks probably the man doesn’t, either, will wait to follow Harry’s cues before he decides.

“Mmhmm,” Harry agrees, turning back to the jukebox. “Here, listen to this.” A record slips into place -- Nick can’t quite place which one -- and Harry’ hips move just slightly in time to the first strums of the guitar.

The man grins menacingly at Harry’s broad back, turned away from him in what the man must think is a vulnerable way, and then his meaty hand moves slowly forward, coming to rest just at the curve of Harry’s hip.

Nick stands up in the same instant as Harry’s spine snaps up straight, all his casual slouching grace gone. “What’re you--” he starts to ask, but the man’s hand just grips him firmer, inching around to the curve of his arse.

“What,” the man asks, “y’don’t like me now?” Harry doesn’t reply, and Nick slowly moves his hand around to the handgun that’s tucked into the waistband of his trousers, silently congratulating himself for not forgetting it in the car.

“Y’all ought to be a little more friendly,” the man says, more confident now, and he must think he’s got Harry pinned, a butterfly waiting to be crushed.

“Actually, we’re leaving now,” Harry says, just loud enough for Nick to hear across the distance.

Between them, the man’s friend -- an essentially identical if slightly taller version of him -- has risen from the table as well, slowly making his way towards them.

“Don’t think you are, _actually_ ,” the man mimics, shoving hard at Harry’s hip.

When Harry turns around to face him, a beautiful, frightening grin stretched across his face, Nick almost feels sorry for the man.

There’s a pause, a vacuum of quiet before the storm, and then Harry explodes into movement, his long arms reaching to yank the man’s head down by the ears as he smashes his knee into his face.

Harry’s not that strong, but he’s got the element of surprised on his side -- the man clearly hadn’t expected it and he goes down almost immediately, crumpling to the floor as holding his bleeding nose. “What the _fuck_ , you little --”

Nick doesn't hear whatever he calls Harry, though, because the mans’ friend is rushing over, presumably to help him up or try to smash Harry’s face into the jukebox. It’s only the distance between them that gives Nick time to aim the gun at the friend’s knee and squeeze out several shots. One must connect because he shouts and goes down, still several paces from Harry and the man.

Harry’s a tornado, relentlessly kicking the man as he tries to climb back to his feet and failing. Harry’s heel comes down on his throat with a sickening crunch, and then his face, his stomach and his neck again all in quick succession. Nick sidesteps the one he’d shot, groaning and clutching his bleeding knee, and comes up behind the man, boxing him in on the ground between him and Harry.

“Dunno if you ever really had a chance with him, mate,” Nick says to the man when Harry stops kicking long enough for him to be heard. The man is covered in his own blood, several teeth missing, and the only noise he makes is a wet gurgle in the back of his throat.

“Not really my type,” Harry agrees serenely, wiping the blood on his boot off on the man’s jeans. The man’s eyes have shut now, only a few groans coming up from his throat. “You ready to go?” Harry asks Nick.

“Just about,” he says, and then levels the gun at the man’s face. He pauses, though, and reconsiders. “Actually, would you like to?” He offers the gun to Harry, and he takes it, pleased.

“You need better manners,” Harry says to the man, and then shoots him between the eyes.

He looks at the man's body consideringly for a moment, like he’s examining his own handiwork for error, then smiles, and hands the gun back to Nick.

Behind them, the man’s friend is struggling to his feet, right leg barely supporting his weight, but he’s coming at them, clearly thinks he can take them. It’s almost boring when he goes down easily, four more shots from Nick hitting him, this time in the neck and the head.

“Now I’m ready,” he tells Harry.

They’re nearly out the door when there’s a small sob from behind the counter. They both turn, and Nick realizes the waitress -- the one who’d brought him pie and coffee -- is standing there in horror, pressing herself against the furthest wall. Nick had forgotten she was there, to be honest.

“Hold on,” Harry says, turning back into the restaurant. The waitress is shaking, her face gone completely pale, but Harry just walks up to her easily. “Can I borrow a pen, love?” he asks her. She fumbles, clearly confused, but stretches her arm out to hands him a pen from the pocket of her apron with a shaking hand.

Harry takes it calmly, like there’s nothing strange about the situation at all, and then pulls a paper napkin from the overturned dispenser. He scrawls something on it with the pen, and then hands both back to the waitress. “Sorry for the mess,” he apologizes, and then he’s walking briskly back to Nick, pulling him out the door and into the sunshine.

-

They’re back on the road in minutes, Nick speeding away as fast he can goad the car to go. In the distance he hears sirens, but they’re going the opposite direction, into town as opposed to following them out of it. His pulse is thrumming happily, and he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or kiss Harry or speed the car up, faster and faster and faster, until the world around them is just a blur.

“What’d you write on the napkin?” he asks over the rush of the wind coming in through the open top.

“Our names,” Harry tells him, smiling hugely, looking so pleased and happy with himself that Nick could shout. “We deserve proper credit, after all.”

-

The dam breaks after that, and it’s like a door opening, like permission. If Nick stops to think about it too long his head starts to swim, in the best sort of way, because it’s so _much_ , it’s so wide open and wonderful just to be with Harry, free and unstoppable. Nick thinks they’re invincible -- he hasn’t got any reason not to.

There’s more and more and more of them, a trail of dead growing steadily behind them now that they’ve given themselves permission -- there’s another drunken trucker drinking a cup of coffee at a rest stop who hisses a slur at them, and Harry squeezes out a round of bullets into the back of his head. There’s an off-duty security guard plus two other men with guns who’d tried put up a fight when Harry casually helps himself to the money in a till at a roadside restaurant. There’s a bank teller who doesn’t listen when Harry tells him to lay on the ground, a man at a bar who tries to draw the pistol in his belt at Harry when he sees him doing the same. There’s more than Nick can keep track of, after a while, and it makes him giddy.

They’re cutting a swath through the country, the landscape turning wild and barren and back to lush all over again, it seems, and they leave a trail of blood as they go. Only people who deserve it, Harry says, those are the only ones they go after, although his definition of “people who deserve it” gradually expands to include anyone who might get in their way. Harry’s almost feral with it, giddy and beautiful and unpredictable. He presses Nick fiercely into their motel beds at night and fucks himself down on Nick’s cock, recounting their own stories to Nick -- “Remember the look on his face?” he asks -- and laughing when he comes.

Nick thinks he’s never been more in love, with anyone, with life itself.

-

The landscape goes more and more wild the further west they drive, hills growing into mountains, cutting jagged lines into the sky. Nick stops the car occasionally, when his legs start to cramp up or when there’s something scenic that Harry wants to see. When the highway they’re on crosses a massive bridge over a canyon one afternoon, Harry gasps so loudly at the sight that Nick pulls over in the middle of it without second thought. Harry jumps out of the car immediately and clambers up onto the railing, watching the river snake and twist through the carved-out valley of jagged rocks far below them, so far it seems like miles. Harry props himself up on his tiptoes, clinging to the guardrail loosely like he’s never even thought about falling, and dangles his head over the edge, turning to smile at Nick while his hair blows in the wind whipping up from beneath them.

“How far down do you think it goes?” Harry asks.

“Dunno,” Nick says. It’s hard to tell from this far up, and his stomach twists in a thrill when he looks over the edge, at all the empty space floating beneath them, and then the river way down below, crashing through the narrow walls of the rocks pressing in on it.

“Hm,” Harry says, pondering it carefully. He reaches into the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a handful of things -- a pen with the end mangled and chewed up, a stick of gum, a lighter and a mishmash of loose coins, American cents and the leftover pence from back home both. He sticks his tongue between his teeth as he frowns in concentration, and drops them all over the edge of the railing one by one, tipping his hand carefully until they slide off. The pen goes first, tipping end over end, and then the gum and the lighter, and finally the money, reflecting the glint of the sunlight as it falls.

“What’s that for?” Nick asks.

Harry shrugs. “Felt like it.”

Nick watches them go until he can’t see them anymore, and even then he thinks they must still be falling, all the spare detritus of Harry’s pockets. It’s not as if he expects to hear it when they hit the river, they’re so far up -- he thinks it must take anything ages to fall all the way to the bottom -- but he listens anyway, keeps watching. Harry stares as well, although Nick can’t tell if he’s trying to track the things he’d dropped, or watching the river, or just looking at the vast emptiness beneath them, but he stares intently, for a long time, as if in a trance. Nick stops looking into the canyon and looks at Harry instead.

Finally his head snaps up, and he brushes his palms together like he’s ridding himself of something. “That’s that, then,” he says to Nick, straightening the typical hunch of his shoulders.

It hits Nick like a freight train, the overwhelming bravery and vulnerability all mixed up in that one gesture, Harry making himself up as tall as he can while he chucks his scant amount of possession -- amounting to no more than rubbish, Nick things, not unkindly -- into the abyss. He feels the need to do something monumental in return, something enormous and oceanic, but when he tries to move his hands, he finds he can’t quite manage it.

“You know I’ll take care of you, yeah?” he settles on instead.

“‘Course,” Harry says, turning to him and smiling.

“Because I will, I promise,” Nick insists, because he’s suddenly desperate for Harry to know it. “Anything that might hurt you, I swear, I’d --”

“You’ll protect me,” Harry repeats, reaching over to pull Nick’s hand into his own. “I get it. And I’ll protect you too, yeah? We look out for each other.”

“Forever,” Nick tells him.

“Forever,” Harry repeats again, and then laughs softly. “‘Til death do us part, right?” He looks out over the edge of the bridge again, down into the depth of the canyon, before turning back to NIck.

The panic in Nick’s chest shatters, falling away into something bright and blooming, and he wants to shout, wants to wrap Harry up in his arms so tightly that they can never be pulled apart, not by any force. “You’re dead romantic, love,” he says instead, trying to sound lighthearted and missing it by a mile.

“Don’t make fun,” Harry pouts, still grinning. “‘S’not nice.”

“Sorry,” Nick says, moving behind Harry and wrapping his arms around his skinny waist so they’re both looking down.

“D’you think that stuff’s hit the bottom yet?” Harry asks after a moment.

“Dunno,” Nick says into the curve of Harry’s neck. He hasn’t any idea how long it’s been falling by now, or how long it takes to hit the bottom.

-

Nick rents them the most expensive hotel room he can find that night, which isn’t much, given the remote area, but there’s a massive bed, at least, and a liquor store where he buys them a bottle of terrible champagne that’s likely been on the shelf for ages.

They drink it from the plastic cups from their hotel room’s bathroom, the bubbles fizzing manically in Nick’s mouth, through his blood. Harry’s cheeks flush beautifully red the more he drinks, and he laughs loudly, tipping his head back, when he turns on the television to see their own faces staring back, the caption ARMED AND DANGEROUS emblazoned above them. Nick can’t help but laugh too, can’t stop once he starts, the wonderful absurdity of it all making him feel more drunk than the alcohol. They’re both still laughing when he presses Harry against the mattress, kissing him between fits of giggles until his vision blurs, the sound of news anchors reciting their names in his ears the whole time.

-

“This road never ends, I think,” Harry tells him, days later. They’re angling southwest, sort of, the last town and two dead liquor store clerks hours behind them by now. It’s just the road, sprawling over dust and shrubs, alternating in a pattern of brown and red.

Nick thinks he knows what Harry means. They keep driving towards the horizon, sometimes flat and sometimes obscured by hills and mountains, but it never gets any closer. It’s easy to think the road might actually go on forever, endlessly leading somewhere they can never get to.

“Of course it ends,” he says anyway. “All roads have to end. We’d drive into the ocean, else.”

Harry just shakes his head, and uses the hand that’s not trailing outside the open car and catching on the wind to pull off his hat and sunglasses. They’ve got the top down -- they almost always do, now, Harry insists and Nick likes it that way anyway -- and Harry tilts his face up at the sky, squinching his eyes shut at the glaring sun but refusing to turn away. It lights him up so beautifully it’s almost as if he’s glowing from inside.

“Not this one,” he insists easily, and Nick tries not to think about how young Harry is, but he can’t help himself. Harry is young and earnest and wide-open, and it throws Nick’s own bitten-off calculation into relief.

“This one’s special,” Harry continues. “I can tell. It goes on forever. No end.” He stretches both his arms up into the sky like he’s trying impossibly to reach the very top of it. His fingers wiggle in the wind before he lets them drop back down into the car, this time his left arm draped over the console, closer to Nick. Nick reaches for it.

“There’s always an end, love,” he tells Harry, squeezing his wrist firmly across the console. His long fingers encircle the thin bones there easily, and he presses in tighter, wanting to leave a mark. Harry squirms happily in the seat next to him. His hat is abandoned by his feet now, and he nearly crushes it as he moves.

“Not for us,” he breathes out, shifting in his seat. “We go on forever too.” He tips his head up to the sky again and moans a breathy little noise when Nick digs the crescents of his nails into the thin skin of Harry’s wrist. The column of his throat is long and pale and the wind is pulling through his hair, and he moans again, louder. If he keeps it up, Nick’s going to have to pull over the car immediately.

“Yeah?” he asks, keeping his foot steady on the accelerator. “Tell me about it.”

Harry’s hands curl tightly on the edge of his seat, and he keeps watching the sky as it slides by above them. He smiles when he speaks. “Well, ‘s’like. Nothing ever dies. We can’t die, we can’t stop. We’re like -- we’re like the sun, or the wind, we just go on forever. Forces of nature.” He whines low in his throat as Nick’s fingernails clutch in even deeper, hips jerking up just a bit. Nick can see the hard line of Harry’s cock through his tight, faded jeans, the one’s he’d hacked off into cutoffs with a hunting knife in the bathroom of a motel miles and miles from here. His lower lip is white where he’s biting down on it, and Nick can feel his pulse jumping like a timpani roll at the sight of him.

He can’t bring himself to correct Harry, to tell him that even the sun will burn out one day, that the wind will stop and all of nature will go barren and flat and eventually die, no matter the force of it. He rather likes the way Harry’s said it, the two of them going on forever, even if he hasn’t got it quite right. He can picture them driving and never stopping, the long stretch of road never running out, and they just -- go, just like this, infinite and wild.

“You’ve got a way with words,” he says instead, and pulls over sharply, the car shuddering to a stop on the shoulder and sending up a cloud of dust. There’s nothing, not one living thing for miles and miles, save for several massive birds circling way off to the north, their wings flat and unmoving as they drift in a lazy figure eight.

“What’s here? Why’ve we stopped?” Harry asks, smiling in a bitten-off way that Nick can tell means he knows exactly why. Nick ignores him, gets out of the car and leaves his door hanging open as he circles around the back and reaches the passenger side. Harry stretches his legs and climbs over the top of the door without bothering to open it. His feet are bare and they press firmly into the dirt as he leans up against the car, crossing his arms lazily across his chest. The sun is beating down hot, the smell of baked earth and dry grass all around them as Nick crowds Harry up against the side of the car and grabs a handful of his hair, yanking back gently so the long column of Harry’s neck is exposed.

He’s incapable of stopping himself from biting it up, leaving a fresh trail of bite marks on top of old ones that are bruised and fading. Harry’s hips press up against Nick and he hisses and gasps in a pleased manner as Nick pushes him back even harder at the same time as he tries to get the zip of Harry’s cutoff jeans open. Harry goes slack once he does, Nick getting the zip down just enough to shove them far enough down Harry’s narrow hips so his cock pops out, pink and hard, curving up. It’s familiar enough, but Nick’s heart still stutters at the sight. He wants to take Harry apart.

“Here,” he says, holding his hand up to Harry’s mouth. He grins at him and then sucks two of Nick’s fingers in. His hips punch forward on their own when he feels Harry’s tongue swirl around them, the soft clutch of his throat and the hint of teeth too much of a sense memory for him to handle. He pulls his fingers out after a moment, and then holds his hand out. Harry spits into it, looking up at Nick through his eyelashes the whole time.

He drops his hand and wraps it around Harry’s dick, and Harry moans so load it almost echoes through the empty landscape. “Yeah?” Nick asks, even though he already knows the answer, and Harry nods.

Nick jerks him fast and carelessly, probably too hard, but Harry only leans into it, his shoulders slumping and hips coming off the car door as he strains into Nick’s fist and lets out a shameless whine. “Shit, don’t -- don’t stop, Nick, Jesus,” he breathes out.

Nick won’t stop, can’t stop, because he doesn’t know how to stop the frantic feeling that’s on him now, the sense that if he stops they’ll both disappear, that without _this_ there’s nothing else, just dead air on a doomed, endless planet -- but this, this is something beautiful and raw and alive.

“Nick, _Nick_ ,” Harry chants, and the way he says Nick’s name wraps around him.

When Harry comes, arching up and biting back a choke as his spills hot into Nick’s hand, the grip of the feeling lessens. It’s only when Harry guides Nick’s hand back up to his mouth and licks his own come off of it that it fades enough for Nick to realize how hard he is, but when he does it slams into him like a wall, almost tangibly solid. If he could think straight enough, he would turn Harry around, bend him over the car door and spread him open, fuck him until the force of it reverberates down into the earth itself. But that involves faculties he’s not sure he’s got at the moment, so he just stands there instead, waiting.

And then Harry is smiling again, dropping down onto his knees in the rocky dirt like it’s soft carpet, still between Nick and the car. He doesn’t bother to pull his cutoffs up, so they sit open, his cock still out and halfway hard, and Nick has to lean over him and brace his hands on the car so his knees don’t give out at the sight. Harry’s hands trail up the back of his legs gently, and for just a moment he leans forward and rests his forehead on Nick’s hip softly, eyes shut, looking serene and grateful and so beautiful even as his breath is hot on Nick’s cock through his trousers. It takes the wind out of him.

Harry opens his eyes after a moment and unbuttons Nick’s trousers deftly, sliding them down his thighs before leaning in and taking Nick’s cock in his mouth in one swift motion. Nick doesn’t whine at it, but comes close. He loves Harry’s mouth, loves this. He loves _Harry_. He wants the earth to open up and swallow them like this.

He comes as Harry pulls off, shooting on his lips and chin, and when he’s finished Harry holds his gaze as he drags his fingers through it, smiling happily the whole time. Eventually Nick tucks himself back into his trousers, trying to keep his legs from going to rubber underneath him, and Harry stands up easily like he hasn’t just been kneeling in the dirt with bare knees and feet.

“Jesus,” Nick says.

“C’mon,” Harry says, tumbling gracelessly back into the car and stretching his legs out so his bare feet are propped up on the dash. “Still got forever.” He laughs at his own joke, just a bit.

Nick only stands and looks at him dazedly for a moment, and then shakes his head, gets back in the car, and pulls back onto the road.

-

Two days later the endless road is interrupted by the nearest thing to a proper town they’ve seen in ages, and even then, it’s mostly a small collection of shops and houses jammed together in a tight circle, like covered wagons huddled together against the wind. Beyond the limits of the town the red dirt spreads out, verging on becoming a proper desert, vast and unyielding, the town an oasis set down in the middle of it.

Nick’s immediately wary, because it’s a risk, being around this many people, especially as their notoriety has been chasing them, rapidly gaining. There’s a good chance they’ll be recognized here, and that’s alright, it’s happened before and they’ve dealt with it -- he thinks about their trunk full of weapons and holds onto it like a lifeline -- but this is bigger. It wouldn’t be hard for them to be outnumbered here.

But Harry wants to stop, and Nick still can’t say no to him.

Harry insists on splitting up as soon as the car’s stopped at a gas station, and Nick really needs to learn how to say no to him, but so far he hasn’t managed, so Harry meanders off while Nick fills the car up, peering into shop windows he passes before turning a corner and going out of Nick’s sight. He sighs, waiting for the tank to fill, and tries to decide what to do next.

In the end, he settles on buying a ticket at the old two-screen cinema a few blocks over, and he falls asleep halfway through a matinee of _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ , the only one in the theater. When he jerks awake an hour later, the lights have gone up and the projector is clacking uselessly, imageless light shining over the dusty screen.

He stands up slowly, cracking his back as he does, and goes to look for Harry.

He finds him easily enough in the only diner in town, his curly hair visible over the back of a booth as soon as Nick pushes the door open with a chime. He breathes a sigh of relief, a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding from the moment they’d gone off in different directions.

The relief is short lived, though, because when he reaches the booth, he realizes with a sick jolt that Harry isn’t alone.

“Nick,” Harry says when he sees him, voice soft and fond like it gets when he’s found something shiny to catch his attention. “Look, I’ve made a friend.”

There’s another boy sitting next to him in the booth, and he’s staring at Harry with a look on his face caught somewhere between sly and enraptured. He’s shorter than Harry, about the same age, and his soft hair sweeps over his angular features in a way that instinctively makes Nick want to muss it, just to see what happens. He crosses his arms over his chest instead.

“He’s from Yorkshire,” Harry says, smiling widely up at Nick and then back at the boy in turn. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”

“What’s his name?” Nick asks Harry. The boy frowns at him, but Nick just ignores him, not moving his gaze from Harry’s face.

“His name is Louis,” the boy answers, a snappish tone in his voice that Nick hadn’t quite expected.

“Brilliant,” Nick says. “Harry, say goodbye to Louis, we need to go now.”

“Don’t be rude, Nick,” Harry pouts. “I made a _friend_. And we just ordered. Sit down and eat with us.”

Nick sighs and scuffs the edge of his foot on the dirty linoleum of the diner’s floor. The boy -- Louis -- looks torn between wanting to scowl at Nick and gaze adoringly at Harry, and eventually settles his attention on Harry, conspicuously not looking at Nick. Nick would be annoyed if he didn’t know that feeling so well -- the one where you want to tear your eyes away, to force yourself focus on anything else besides Harry, but can’t. He felt that the first time in the filthy pub in London, and it hasn’t left him since then. So instead of arguing he sighs again, just to register at least some sort of protest, and slides into the vinyl booth.

“This is Nick,” Harry introduces once he’s settled across from him.

“Yeah, I,” Louis starts, glancing quickly over at Nick before darting his gaze back to Harry. Harry’s absolutely basking under his attention, turning towards it like a flower to the sun. Nick thinks that if he’s not careful, Harry’ll try and adopt this boy like a stray cat -- he can see it in Harry’s pleased expression.

“I know,” Louis finishes carefully. “I, um. I know who you two are.”

Nick arches an eyebrow, and tries to keep his pulse from speeding up at the thrill.

“You’re on the news a lot,” Louis explains. “You’re both sort of rather famous, did you know? Or I guess, like, infamous.”

Nick snorts humorlessly, but Harry just smiles and preens some more. A moment later a waitress in a stained apron turns up with their food, and they must not be _that_ recognizable, because she just drops a plate of chips in front of Harry with a thunk and walks off without a word.

“So if we’re so infamous,” Nick starts, not bothering to disguise the suspicion in his voice, “and you know who we are, why’re you sitting here with us? And not, like, running away and calling the police?”

“Do you _want_ me to call the police?” Louis asks defensively.

“‘Course he doesn’t, he’s just being a twat,” Harry tells him soothingly.

“Just trying to figure out what your angle is here,” Nick says. “Perhaps you can understand that? Only I’d rather not sit around waiting to be arrested if you’ve gone and called in a tip or summat when we could be using this time to get a head start.”

“He hasn’t, Nick, stop it,” Harry says, and even though his tone is still fond, it still smarts a bit, being scolded.

“I won’t,” Louis says, quieter this time, looking down at his small hands that are folded on the table in front of him. “I wouldn’t.” Harry reaches over at that, letting his knuckles brush against Louis’.

“Okay,” Nick says, trying to make his voice a bit gentler this time. “But why should we believe that? I’m not trying to be an areshole,” he says, mostly for Harry’s benefit, “it’s just -- you can see why it’s important we be sure.”

“Because I don’t want anyone to know I’m here either, to start with,” Louis says, tipping his chin up in a way that Nick assumes is meant to be defiant. It has the opposite effect, though, and it’s the vulnerability in it, the desperate way Louis seems to want to be seen as collected and in control, that loosens the fist of suspicion in Nick’s chest.

“Why _are_ you here, then?” Nick asks. Harry’s frowns kittenishly at him and his foot connects with Nick’s ankle under the table sharply, like he’s out of line for asking, but he doesn’t take the question back.

“Same thing you are,” Louis says, prodding at the plate of chips. “Running away from my problems. Only you lot are doing a better job of it than I am, I think.”

“D’you want to talk about it?” Harry says, so sweet and earnest that Nick has to fight to keep himself from rolling his eyes and leaning across the table to kiss him.

“It’s stupid,” Louis says, twisting his hands uncomfortably. Harry’s hand is still brushing up against Louis’ as they fidget, and after a moment, without quite meaning to, Nick reaches over to put his own hand on top of Louis’, stilling them. His skin is warm and soft underneath his palm, and the familiar line of Harry’s fingers press against Nick’s. The three of them sit there for a long moment, hands twisted up together, before Nick pulls his back. Louis takes a breath in, looking slightly less restless.

“Standard shit,” he says softly. “Trouble at home, crap father, stole a whole shiteload of his money to get away from him. The usual.”

Nick’s not sure what to do with the fact that that’s what Louis thinks of as _the usual_ , but it twists his stomach around.

“I saw you on the news,” Louis continues. “And I knew I was supposed to be horrified, like -- bloke and his boyfriend kill the ex, or whatever, and go on the run, but.” He shifts, like he’s searching for the words and can’t quite grasp them. “There was this bloke I saw interviewed, said he was a friend of yours?” He looks at Harry at that, eyes wide, and for a moment, the look that passes between them makes Nick feel like an intruder. “And he said the one you -- the one you killed, he deserved it, that he like -- hit you or whatever, and just.” He shrugs. Nick assumes he must mean the bartender, Zayn, can’t imagine who else it might’ve been, but he doesn’t press it, because after a moment Louis continues. “All I could think was that I wish I could’ve done that. I wish I could’ve just... I dunno. Fought, instead of fled.”

He sits back at that, silent, and for a long moment no one speaks. Harry is staring at Louis, positively enraptured, the fierce, almost wild glint of protectiveness in his eyes familiar and foreign all at once.

“What about the other ones, though?” Nick asks. “There have been ones after him, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees. “Figured you had your reasons.”

Nick considers, because yeah, that’s -- that’s mostly right. He’s surprised that Louis understands, and it doesn't mean Nick _trusts_ him, necessarily, but it’s -- it’s something.

“So that’s why I won’t turn you in,” Louis says. “Sort of been rooting for you all along.”

It’s stupid to believe him, Nick thinks. It’s stupid and dangerous and so is sitting still in this diner, rapidly filling up with other people, people who might know them as well.

But on the other hand, Nick thinks he might not know how to do things that aren’t stupid and dangerous anymore.

-

The _stupid and dangerous_ thing is confirmed an hour later, when Harry’s tugging Louis by the hand into their motel room, Nick trailing behind and shutting the door behind them with a solid _click_. Once he locks it, he fits his hand against the small of Louis’ back, pressing him gently forward into the room as Harry leads the way.

Nick’s still not completely convinced, knows that this is too much like trusting Louis, and while Nick believes what he’d said at the diner, believes Louis doesn't want to turn them in, he still knows that trusting -- proper trusting him -- is something he can’t afford.

But Harry’s bent in towards Louis’ mouth, giggling happily at something that Nick can’t quite hear, and that’s enough for Nick. There’s something about the way Harry’s face lights up when he looks at Louis, and Nick realizes for what must be the hundredth time, the thousandth, that anything that makes Harry look like that, lit up from inside -- that’s what Nick wants. Nick wants whatever Harry does.

And even besides that, there’s something magnetic about Louis on his own that Nick can’t make himself look away. He’s _pretty_ , all sharp teeth and soft curves, but there’s more to it than that. Nick finds he wants to pin him down, peer at him until he figures him out at the same time he wants to muss him up, take him apart. Nick understands why Harry’s drawn into him -- he feels it too.

When the two of them reach the wide bed, Harry gives Louis’ wrist one last tug, and they go tumbling down onto the duvet, both of them still giggling. Nick follows slowly, waiting at the foot of the bed. They’re on their sides, facing each other, still laughing, and there’s a long moment that Nick knows is the pause, the edge that they’re all waiting to step over. He toes off his shoes as he watches them, and they stop laughing, a sweet tension pulsing out from the now, and then -- and then Harry reaches out, not tentative but slow, purposeful. Nick thinks this is it, but then Harry turns up to look at him, the question clear on his face, and Nick realizes it’s up to him, that Harry’s waiting for him to give the go ahead.

He takes a breath, and nods, once.

Harry smiles at him, just for a moment, private and crystal clear, and Nick forgets about anything else, forgets about Louis, forgets where they are, forgets everything that’s not his boy. His chest pangs, too full up with awe and affection.

And then Harry turns back to Louis, fitting his hand under the sharp curve of Louis’ jaw, tilting it up as he leans in to kiss him.

Nick watches them carefully, steadily, studying the unhesitating way their lips fit together like they’ve done it before, like it’s what they’re meant to do. Louis’ small hand is fitting itself up under the hem of Harry’s shirt, pressing it up and exposing his stomach where Louis is stroking it softly. Harry murmurs a pleased noise and drapes one of his legs over Louis’, pulling him closer so their hips snug up together.

Nick makes himself step forward, then, because he’s worried if he stands too long just looking he won’t be able to make himself at all. He sits carefully on the bed, nearer to Harry, feeling a bit at a loss, but then the two boys are struggling to sit up without breaking their kiss, Harry reaching one arm blindly out towards Nick and drawing him in when he finds him.

Nick fits himself up around Harry, who’s now sitting with his legs splayed off to the side while Louis arranges himself so he’s kneeling in front of Harry, giving him a few inches of height over him. They’re still kissing, soft and happy noises coming from them both as they peel each other’s shirts over their heads, only getting a bit tangled before tossing them across the room.

Nick sits back to watch for a moment, the sight of Harry’s broad, pale chest fitting up against Louis’ tan skin forcing him to press the heel of his hand against his cock where it’s already getting hard in his trousers. They’re gorgeous together, and Nick forgets to move, so caught up in watching them, until Harry reaches out for him again.

After a long moment they pull apart, Harry sort of flopping backwards onto the bed, his jeans tight and low on his hip, the dark smudges of his tattoos standing out bright on his chest. Without waiting, he unbuttons his fly and pulls them down as far as he can without properly sitting up, leaving Louis and Nick to each pull one leg over his pale feet before Nick discards them somewhere over his shoulder.

“Fuck,” Louis says, “He’s beautiful.”

Nick realizes he’s talking to him and forces himself to answer. “He is, isn’t he?” And it’s true, staggeringly true -- Harry’s spread out before them, naked, arms and legs splayed wide, and he looks so beautiful, waiting for them to touch him and kiss him and take him apart. It seizes at Nick’s chest, the familiar but still arresting awe he feels whenever he looks at Harry clutching at him like a fist. _Anything at all_ , he thinks -- anything at all that Harry wants in the world, that’s what he’ll give him.

“Can I --” Louis starts, looking over at Nick again, and Nick nods quickly, wants to see it -- Louis’ hands on Harry, working him over until he gasps and writhes.

Louis looks at Harry steadily, concentration etched on his face for an instant before he shifts off the bed, pulling down his own trousers and pants in one swift, sure movement.

The stretch of his gold skin distracts Nick momentarily, but even more so when Louis rearranges himself around Harry’s legs and easily fits his mouth around Harry’s cock.

“Jesus,” Harry swears, and Nick can tell he wants to thrust into it but he holds himself back, letting Louis carefully work his mouth around him, deliberate sucks and twists, his small hands wrapping around the length of Harry’s cock he can’t quite swallow.

They carry on like that for a bit, and soon Harry’s control starts to slip a bit, his hips starting to shift and wriggle, and Louis is getting sloppier, spit slicking down his chin and around Harry’s cock when he pulls off. It’s beautiful, Nick could watch it all day, but -- but he wants more, as well.

He fits his hands on Louis’ shoulders, pulling him off Harry and forcing him to sit up so he’s on the other side of Harry, the two of them arranged symmetrically and staring down at him. “D’you want to fuck him, Haz?” Nick asks quietly -- loud enough for all of them to hear, but still soft in the quiet of the room. “D’you want him to make you feel good?”

Harry groans, a broken sound from deep inside him, and thrusts his hips up helplessly, looking for any contact. Nick presses his fingers against the sharp bone of his hip, holding him down, pressing him back into the bed. “Answer,” he prompts.

“Yes,” Harry says, his voice desperate. “Please.” Next to Nick Louis lets out a soft noise, something between a hum and a whine, and Nick keeps a firm hand on Harry’s hip, but looks over at Louis. His legs are bent under him so he’s sitting on his heels, the line of his cock hard and pink, resting against the curve of his stomach. He’s so different from Harry, all soft and coiled up where Harry is sharp, languid angles. He’s quiet, too, something Harry’s never any good at being. Nick wants to find out if he stays quiet, or if he’ll get louder, stop biting it back once he’s desperate enough that he can’t help it.

Harry’s pressing up on his elbows, trying to rearrange himself to get at one of them, or maybe both, but Nick and Louis press him back down at the same time. “Stay,” Nick instructs. “Stay there.”

Harry groans again, but does as he’s told, laying back for Nick so he can run his hands across his stomach, skirting around his spit-slicked cock and grazing the tops of his thighs.

“Good boy,” Nick tells him.

Louis is still sitting silently next to Nick, biting at his lip until it turns white, his small hands twitching like they want to move, want to touch. Nick reaches over carefully and picks up his nearest hand, guiding it over to Harry. “Go on,” he tells Louis, his own bigger hand enveloping Louis’ as he presses it against Harry’s chest, down the curve of his ribs and down to his waist. “You can touch him.”

Louis turns to look at Nick and frowns, although not unhappily. He looks -- curious, mostly, like he wants to figure out Nick, and like he’s caught between wanting to protest and obey. He stays quiet while Nick pulls his own hand away, carries on touching Harry almost reverently, the edge of his thumbnail catching over Harry’s nipple and making him twist up into it. Louis glances at Nick, raises his eyebrows, and when Nick nods, leans in to press his lips against Harry’s, kissing softly and then more firm, Harry’s soft moans swallowed up in the curve of Louis’ mouth.

Nick takes the opportunity to palm softly at Harry’s damp cock, not enough to provide him any real friction, just to remind Harry that he’s there, he’s there. Harry gasps, and without breaking the kiss Louis’ hand snakes back down again, meeting Nick’s on Harry’s cock. He hesitates for a moment, but then his fingers twine around Nick’s, and they wank Harry like that, slowly, in tandem, until he’s whining and trying to get his feet firmly enough on the bed to press up into it. Nick pulls his hand back, then, as does Louis, and he sits back, so the two of them are perched around Harry’s knees again.

Harry’s mouth is red and kiss-bitten, and he’s got that look in his eyes when he goes desperate and begging for it, begging Nick to fuck him or put his mouth on him, anything.

“If you stay still,” Nick tells him slowly, “he’ll ride you. Only if you’re good, though.”

Louis sucks in a breath at that, and in the edge of his vision Nick can see him wrapping a hand around his own cock, stroking once and then just resting there.

“I will,” Harry promises, wetting his lips with his tongue, and Nick knows he wants to put them on something, wants something heavy and thick in his mouth. “Please, c’mon, I’ll be -- I’m good.” He stills his hips on the bed with effort, eyes wide like he’s begging Nick to notice how obedient he’s being.

“That’s okay?” Nick asks Louis softly. He’s fairly sure he knows the answer if the way Louis is flushed pink across the high cut of his cheekbones is anything to go by, but he wants to be sure, wants to be sure they can give Harry exactly what he wants.

“Yeah, yes,” Louis breathes quietly. “Jesus. Someone, um, has to. Like, get me ready, though,” he says, not shy, but just a bit breathless.

“D’you want Harry to do it?” Nick asks. “Or -- I can.” He’d like that, he thinks -- getting Louis ready, spreading him open with his fingers and pressing in, getting his arse ready for Harry to fill up, getting him ready to make Harry feel good. And he wants to touch, he admits to himself, wants to touch Louis’ skin for himself, see if he’s as warm as he looks like he is, if his skin radiates heat the same way it glows golden. See how he feels on the inside.

Louis closes his eyes just for a moment, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks, and then he opens them. “You, I think,” he says to Nick.

Harry groans approvingly beneath them.

“‘Course, love,” Nick says, the endearment slipping out without his meaning to, and he’s not sure which one of them he’s saying it to in that moment, but figures it probably doesn’t matter.

He presses up from the bed, leaving Harry and Louis to fold themselves together again, Harry wrapping his arms around Louis as he pulls him on top of him and into a kiss again, Louis’ hands moving all over Harry’s skin like he wants to memorize the geography of him.

Nick strips his own clothes off hastily and then rummages around through their various bags, taking a moment to find a strip of condoms and the bottle of lube before coming back to the bed, carefully fitting himself up behind Louis.

“Yeah?” he asks, stroking one hand slowly over the curve of Louis’ arse. Louis keens into the touch, arching up so Nick’s hand is forced to splay over him broadly. Nick steadies himself and then flicks open the lid of the lube, wetting his fingers before pulling Louis back by the hips so he can slowly fit one of his fingers inside.

Louis gasps and whines at the first touch, Nick just up to the first knuckle and Louis already moaning into Harry's mouth, not quite kissing anymore but still pressing his mouth there. Harry's trying to kiss back at Louis and see what Nick's doing all at once, and he doesn't know if Harry'll have any luck at it from that angle, but he thinks he'll put on a show just in case.

Louis carries on gasping and pressing back on Nick's finger, more so when Nick adds a second, crooking them and twisting them in turns, trying to open Louis up from any angle he can get at.

When he fits a third in and brushes them against Louis' prostrate he lets out a high, strangled noise, pushing back harshly so Nick's hand is straining against him, but then pulls away, from Nick's fingers and Harry's mouth both.

"I'm good, I'm ready, let's just --" he whines, twisting around aimlessly, trying to get at Harry as best he can. Harry just stays still, and Nick can tell he's trying his best not to move, trying to be good so he can get his cock inside Louis as quick as possible.

"Just a minute, love," Nick says to them both, swiping his slick fingers against his own thigh before reaching out to find a condom, tearing it open and rolling it onto Harry's dick. Harry groans and thrusts into it, but Nick's touch is light as he slicks Harry up -- he wants him to wait to fall apart until he's in Louis.

"Up, c'mon," he directs Louis, tapping at his hip where he's sitting between Nick and Harry. "On him."

For an instant he thinks Louis might argue, but he clearly thinks better of it, and the next moment he crawls on top of Harry, positioning himself over his cock and then sinking down onto him, slowly, until they're flush.

“Jesus,” Nick whispers, because he hasn’t even got anyone’s hands on him but he thinks he can almost _feel_ it, secondhand from the way Louis and Harry are both gasping.

Louis tries to set a rhythm but seems to falter a bit, overwhelmed at the feel of Harry inside him, so Nick moves behind Louis and grasps at his hips, guiding him up and down on Harry's cock until he's got the pace of it. Louis' hips twist under his hands, and it's not long before his head is lolling back, resting against Nick's shoulder where he's pressed up behind him. His fringe is sweaty and plastered against his forehead, and Nick can see the way his thighs are twitching with the effort of keeping himself up, but he doesn't complain.

Beneath them Harry is gasping and meeting Louis' thrusts desperately, his hands roaming wildly over Louis and Nick both, and Nick knows he'll come soon, knows that's what the manic look on his face means.

"C'mon, come for us," Nick instructs him, peering at him over Louis' shoulder. "We want you to, Haz, c'mon."

"Yeah," Louis agrees, his voice a desperate rasp. His hand moves towards his own cock, hard and leaking precome, but Nick bats it away.

"Not 'til he does," he instructs, nodding towards Harry. Louis whines but keeps his hand away, and that must be all it takes for Harry to reach the edge because in an instant he's screwing up his face, his hips flying wildly, and then he's coming, silent, pressing up into Louis one last desperate time.

"Good," Nick tells him, "good boy, you're so good." Harry smiles weakly, preening under it, and Nick watches him, unflinching, as he reaches around to wank Louis' cock. Louis gasps but doesn't pull away, doesn't even pull off Harry's cock as Nick jerks him, and then he's coming as well, shooting hot over Harry's stomach, up to his chest.

"Jesus," Louis breathes after a long moment. He steadies himself and Nick reaches around to hold the condom on Harry's cock as Louis slides off, collapsing boneless next to Harry as Nick chucks the used condom towards the bin.

“You now,” he says to Harry firmly, pulling him up from the bed -- with some effort, he’s not being particularly helpful and Nick mostly has to manhandle him until he’s draped over Nick’s lap, arse up in the air.

He’s rougher opening him up, knows Harry likes the burn and pull of it when Nick’s fast and careless, and all over again he’s consumed with it all, how wild and feral and broke wide open he feels for this boy. Louis is pretty, and the way he makes Harry gasp and keen is wonderful, but it’s nothing compared to this, the way that Harry makes Nick’s chest feel like it’s splintering open, raw and perfect.

With a groan, he draws out his fingers and repositions Harry in front of him, thrusting into him so fiercely he sees stars.

He keeps Harry bent over, on his knees and forearms, thrusting hard into him, harder than Harry'd been with Louis, the way Nick knows Harry loves it. The slap of his thighs against Harry’s arse is only interrupted by Harry’s breathy gasps, begging for it, begging for more.

"C'mon, Nick," Harry encourages. "Fuck me, yeah, c'mon, do it hard," he begs, and Nick had thought that's what he'd been doing, but he screws up his eyes and thrusts harder anyway, nearly lifting him off the bed with the force of it as Louis watches them carefully, eyes hooded.

Harry’s hard again, and Nick can feel his own orgasm creeping up, a tight pinch in his toes and the base of his spine, so he pulls back, holds Harry’s hips so he can’t thrust back again.

“Turn over, love,” he groans, his throat dry and scratchy. Harry obeys easily, goes onto his back again and then hooks one leg up so that Nick can grasp at his ankle, holding him open. Harry makes a choking sound as Nick’s dick presses into him at a new angle, starting to look overwhelmed at it all, starting to fray at the seams, coming apart.

Louis is still watching them interestedly, his own cock only half-hard but a sharp look to his eyes, and Harry must notice as well because he whines and reaches towards Louis aimlessly, trying to draw him closer.

“C’mere,” Nick says to Louis, gesturing him over to kneel alongside Harry’s torso. He comes easily, and Nick swallows, trying to stop the snap of his hips.

“He’ll come again,” he tells Louis. “Help him, yeah?” He looks down at Harry, and he’s sweating and panting and beautiful, a wild light shining through his eyes that look close to overflowing, damp around the edges. “You want that?” he asks Harry. “Louis to wank you off while I fuck you, make you come again? You can do it, can’t you? Come again for me? For Lou?”

Harry’s babbling agreements, promising Nick that he can, yes, please, just let him, and Nick’s hips stutter as he tries to find the bruising rhythm he'd set. Harry’s hardly ever this pliant, usually at least pretending to put up a fight before begging for it, but now he’s just desperate, overstimulated and saying anything he can think of to get a hand on his cock.

“Actually,” Nick says, mostly to himself, and then beckons Louis to lean in closer. He taps him under the chin and then pulls him in softly, kissing him for the first time. Louis’ mouth is soft and clever and a bit sweet, and he nips at Nick’s lip when he pulls back a moment later. Nick takes the opportunity to smile at him, and then fits his hand in the back of Louis’ hair and drags him steadily down to Harry’s cock.

“God, yeah,” Harry chokes out, his whole body going taut like a bowstring as Louis’ mouth fits over him again, the careful suck and drag of earlier replaced by Louis desperately bobbing his head up and down, nearly choking himself on Harry’s cock.

Harry comes with a wild shout the next moment, his whole body snapping wildly and beautifully as he shoots off, half into Louis’ mouth and half onto his chin and neck after Louis pulls back an inch.

And that’s enough for Nick, the slide of the dampness out of Harry’s eyes as it trickles over his temple, the last few spasms of his body totally wrung out and ruined. Distantly Nick realizes Louis is groaning and jerking himself off, rubbing against Harry frantically, but it all turns into static, the image of Harry seared indelibly behind Nick’s eyes as he fucks into Harry one last time and then comes apart, dissolving right down to his molecules, folding himself down onto Harry, Harry, _Harry_.

-

Afterward, as they lie in bed, Louis’ hand is warm on Nick’s back, stroking slowly but surely up and down along his spine, but his eyes never leave Harry, not once. They’re gazing at each other so fiercely that Nick wonders if they can hear each other's thoughts.

Nick squirms away from them, sitting up and rummaging around on the floor for his pants while the two of them carry on like that, silent and just looking, Louis’ small hand gently tracing the line of Harry’s jaw, down his neck and to his collarbone and back again.

Nick pulls on a spare shirt -- one of Harry’s -- not bothering to button it up properly, and fishes a cigarette from a pack he finds resting inside Harry’s upside-down hat on the bureau. The two boys don’t even glance up at him as he lets himself quietly out onto the balcony.

As he lights the cigarette, Nick can’t find it in himself to be jealous, although he thinks objectively he probably ought to. But he knows, knows that Harry’s his and the other way around, knows it like he knows the shape of the sky, massive and overarching. The most he can manage to feel is vaguely sorry for Louis, because however this story ends, it probably won’t be the way he wants it to.

-

When he eventually comes back into the room, they’ve pulled apart, Harry reclining up against the headboard, and Louis with a hand on the bathroom door.

“It’s alright if I shower?” he asks, and at first Nick thinks he’s asking Harry, but after a moment he realizes the words are aimed at him. For some reason, it makes him nervous -- reminds him that Louis is _here_ , not just something to exist in secret between him and Harry but a real person, a factor out of Nick’s control. It douses him like cold water, and he’s instantly tense as he jerks out a nod.

Harry clambers off the bed as the bathroom door closes behind Louis, still stark naked, and winds his arms around Nick’s waist. “Hi,” he says, smiling up at him. “And thanks.”

“This was a bad idea,” Nick says, even though he knows how Harry’ll react to it. “Haz, he _knows_ , he knows too much about us. It’s a liability.”

“Since when do you care?” Harry asks, drawing in his eyebrows in a frown and standing up to his full height -- he’s not small, but he’s still shorter than Nick, and Nick can tell he’s straining to gain another inch or two, conspicuously trying to hold himself as tall as possible rather than slouching as usual. “You’re the one who told me to call the bloody Sun in the first place.”

“The Sun’s not in our _hotel room_ ,” Nick hisses, exasperated. “That one is.” He jerks his head towards the shut bathroom door.

“He’s not going to tell anyone,” Harry says.

And it’s probably true, Nick thinks, because if Louis had meant to, he’d have done it by now. And the way he’d looked at Harry -- that in itself is enough, enough proof for Nick that Louis doesn’t actually pose a threat to them.

But someone has to protest, at least pretend to be the one making rational choices, so Nick tries once more. “We really shouldn’t just let him go,” he says, no weight behind the words at all.

“No,” Harry says simply, and it’s not angry, not a challenge -- just a fact. He slouches past Nick and sprawls backwards onto the bed, folding his arms up and behind his head, looking for the world like someone who has made up his mind with certainty, and has no concerns about that decision being challenged.

The horrible thing, Nick thinks as he throws his hands up dramatically, is that’s just about the situation exactly -- Nick won’t fight him on it. Probably wouldn’t fight him on much of anything, if he’s being honest. It feels comforting and dangerous all at once, because it probably is -- more of a liability than anything, far more than the strange boy currently using their shower, is how far gone he is for Harry. He would do desperate, terrible things as long as Harry will smile at him afterward, as long as he’ll be near Nick at all. He already _has_ done desperate, terrible things, and he’s loved it, every second. He’ll do more, certainly.

The weight of it fairly crushes him, and he locks his knees underneath him to keep from swaying. “Fine,” he says weakly. “Fine, but I’m going for a drive, and we’re leaving in the morning, and he’s gone, then, yeah?”

“Alright,” Harry agrees. Nick feels a rush of relief that that’s the end of it as he puts on his shoes and finds the car keys. He turns back to Harry before he goes, and even though he suddenly feels antsy to get out of the room before Louis comes back, he has to pause to look at Harry, just for a moment, because he thinks he’ll never get his fill of that. He’s got the television on, the reflection of some courtroom program flickering blue and gold on his face as Nick bends down to press a kiss to his forehead and mostly getting eyebrow.

-

Without particularly meaning to, Nick stays out for the rest of the night. He drives east and then south under a clear sky full of stars, and stops after a few hours at a service station that looks nearly abandoned, just one yellow light on in the building illuminating the single person behind the counter. He pulls the car around back of the building and gazes out over the dirt and scrub grass that spreads beyond it. Aimlessly, he reaches under the driver’s seat, letting his fingers curl around the handle of one of the guns hidden there, and thinks about knocking the place off, of relieving the teenage clerk of whatever trifling amount is in the register just for the sake of something to do. But instead he withdraws his hand, and goes inside to pay for a pack of cigarettes, his own forgotten back at the hotel. He spends an hour back in the parked car, hidden round back, smoking them one after the other, gazing at the brick wall of the building and the sprawl of nothingness all around it.

He falls asleep, eventually, and when he wakes after a while with a crick in his neck, the sky is just on the edge of dawn. By the time he pulls into the parking lot of their hotel an hour later, everything’s gone pink around him, the first hot rays of sun just starting to claw over the horizon.

When he gets inside they’re both awake. Louis is pulling on his shoes, bouncing around trying to yank one over his heel without spilling the styrofoam cup of tea he’s got in his other hand. Harry’s sprawled in the only chair in the room, watching Louis fondly, and when Louis finishes jumping around and gets both his shoes on, Harry rises to walk him out.

He presses a kiss to Nick’s jaw when he slides past him in the doorway, and Louis follows him quietly. Nick thinks he’ll go without saying anything to Nick, but once he’s a few steps out the door, he turns back, carefully stepping in close to Nick.

“I won’t say anything,” he says. His hair is sticking up in the back, and he looks tired, but there’s also something else, something alert and honest and vulnerable and just a bit mad in his eyes -- there must be, Nick thinks, if he spends his time willingly going around with people like them, and once again Nick can clearly see what it is in him that Harry had been drawn to so instantly.

He tries to think of some way to say it, but fails. “Thanks,” he says instead.

“He’s something, yeah?” Louis asks, nodding at Harry, leaning against a wall several doors down, waiting for him.

“He is,” Nick agrees. Louis is quiet for a moment, like he’s trying to decide whether or not he wants to say something, but then he shakes his head, and with a last nod at Nick, walks down the hall to Harry. When he reaches him, Harry slings an arm happily over Louis’ shoulder, pulling him in tightly so he nuzzles into Harry’s side as they walk awkwardly, their feet tangling up as they go.

Nick smiles, just a bit, and then shuts the door to their hotel room behind him.

-

Later, when they’re back on the road, Nick thinks of asking what they’d done all night while he’d been away. But the sun is shining bright, hot and insistent, and Harry’s humming tunelessly over the noise of the engine, pushing his sunglasses up his nose and smiling at everything, endlessly happy, and Nick decides it doesn’t matter.

-

Realistically, it has to go to shit eventually. Nick knows it. He can’t tell if Harry does as well or if he thinks their luck will hold out indefinitely, that they can actually drive forever, never stopping. But Nick knows, and he thinks as long as one of them does, that’s enough -- he doesn’t need to bother Harry with it.

So when it happens, the first piece of everything falling away around them, Nick’s not sure if Harry notices. He does, though. It’s like something slotting into its spot, the signs and sigils becoming suddenly meaningful, setting him on edge.

The first piece is when they run out of gas. They’ve been coasting on the wrong side of empty for a while now, and Nick’s been scouring the landscape for anything -- a service station, a sign, anything -- but there’s nothing. Apparently they’re in a dead zone -- Nick hasn’t even seen a turn off in more than ten minutes, so they have nowhere to go besides further down the road they’re on.

He’s been watching the needle on the fuel gauge fall, and it eventually gives one last futile jerk upwards before falling all the way, and that’s when the car sputters to a stop. Nick doesn’t swear, but he thinks it fiercely, and guides the slowing car off the dirt shoulder. Not that it matters, he thinks -- it’s been ages since they’ve seen another car. They could stop in the middle of the road and it would hardly matter, it seems. The engine coughs and sputters asthmatically, and then falls silent.

“What now?” Harry asks neutrally, seemingly unfazed. He looks exactly as he usually does -- sunglasses slipping down his nose, bare feet kicked up on the dash.

Nick shrugs, and looks around. The road they’re on is paved, at least, and there are power lines running along one side of it, so they can’t be _completely_ in the middle of nowhere. Likely if they keep walking, there’ll be somewhere with a phone to use soon enough.

And after that, Nick's not sure what.

“Up for a bit of a walk?” Nick asks, trying to make it sound like a fun lark rather than their only option.

Harry smiles easily at him, and then shoves his feet into his shoes and hops out of the car to follow Nick down the road.

-

They trudge along like that for a bit, Harry by his side, kicking aimlessly at the weeds growing on the side of the road as they go and sending up plumes of dirt and dust in the process. Nick’s sweating, his shirt sticking to his back and his hair drooping down under the unrelenting sun, but if Harry’s bothered, he’s not showing it -- he just carries on, swinging his long arms by his side as he lopes along happily. If Nick wasn’t so sickeningly fond of him, he’d hate him a bit for how totally unbothered by it all he seems.

When the sun finally begins to creep towards the horizon, the heat dissipating just an inch for the first time all day, Nick breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not actually much relief, but it hints at its coming, which is enough to get Nick to relax his shoulders as the sun carries on setting.

It’s almost properly dark when they finally come around a twist in the road and see a farmhouse set a little ways back from the road. There’s a large barn around back, although Nick can only see dust and dirt around them, the barren hills devoid of anything even vaguely resembling agriculture. The house itself is gray and old, starting to sag around the edges in a way that looks cozy and lived-in.

“I guess we knock?” Harry says, frowning, unsure, as they approach. Nick shrugs.

“Guess we’d better.”

There’s a long moment of silence after Nick raps on the front door, but eventually he hears movement inside, and then the porch light snaps on, an older woman with gray hair and a nightgown answering the door.

“You boys need somethin’?” she asks through the screen door. She sounds cautious and friendly all at once, like she’ll be glad to help them just as long as she gets the proper amount of carefulness in first.

“Hi, sorry to disturb you,” Harry says, hunching up his shoulders and putting on his best sweetly disarming voice. He raises his eyebrows apologetically, and Nick can see the wariness drain away from the woman’s face. “Our car’s run out of gas a while back.” He shrugs helplessly at it, and she nods sympathetically. “Would it be too much trouble to borrow your phone to call for help?”

Harry’s voice is slow and sweet, syrupy, and Nick knows before he’s even done asking that the woman will let them in. Honestly, she never really stood a chance.

-

She insists on making them coffee once she ushers them inside to the cramped, cozy living room. It’s done up in shades of brown and smells a bit like dust, a bit like vanilla.

“Thank you, this is really nice,” Harry’s saying sweetly to the woman. They’re both sat on the same end of the sofa, a bit away from Nick, and Harry leans in towards her conspiratorially like they’re a team. “We’ll call in a moment and be out of your way.”

“Take your time,” she says, clearly enraptured by Harry.

Nick twitches, tapping his foot and his fingers all at once, because he’s antsy to make the call and get out. Every second they spend here feels risky, but Harry’s invested now, won’t give up his game of plying her into complete submission, so Nick sits back and waits.

The woman says something that Nick doesn’t quite catch, something about pie, and Nick sighs and re-crosses his legs. Harry’s reply gets cut off by the sound of the front door opening, though, and Nick can’t help it, he leaps to his feet in anticipation of someone else turning up suddenly. Another person is another variable, and he doesn’t mean to be taken by surprise.

It turns out to be a good instinct, because he hears a man’s voice call out “Hey, darlin’,” and then the man it belongs to turns the corner into the room, done up in a Sheriff’s uniform.

They’re in the local bloody Sheriff’s house.

“Hey, Leonard,” the wife says, smiling and standing to greet him. Harry rises as well, so they’re all standing, everyone but the wife with a cautious expression on their faces.

“These boys need to call for a tow, ran out of gas a ways back,” she explains. The Sheriff frowns but nods, and takes off his hat and undoes the belt around his waist with his gun and handcuffs, setting them on a side table with a thunk.

“Well I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, a hint of suspicion still etched in his face, but he smooths it away in the next moment with a shake of his head. “We might have an extra can ‘round here if you like, could probably take you back to your car in the cruiser and lend you enough to get into town.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of where _town_ must be.

“That’d be lovely, thanks,” Harry says quietly. The Sheriff freezes at that, the sound of Harry’s voice stopping him in his tracks, so conspicuously foreign in the little farmhouse.

“Hold on, I know--” the Sheriff starts, but he doesn’t finish the sentence, biting it off and flying into motion instead, going for the gun sitting on the side table as quick as lightning. Harry must’ve anticipated it, though, because he leaps at him across the tiny room, tackling him bodily out of the way before he can get to it. They hit a lamp in a tangle of arms and legs, sending it crashing, and the woman screams, but Nick barely hears it, too focused on getting to the gun himself while the Sheriff is distracted by Harry.

Distantly, he hears a punch land, the sick squelch of fist on flesh, and he takes a moment to hope it’s Harry doing the punching rather than the other way around, but then he’s got the Sheriff’s gun in his hand, flicking the safety off and turning back to the heap of them, leveling the muzzle with steady hands.

Harry and the man are tangled on the floor, and the wife is still screaming, pressed against the far wall like she’s trying to escape through it, but Nick ignores it, focusing steadily on the Sheriff. He can’t get a clear aim, though, because Harry’s so twisted around him, so he sort of shouts wordlessly, and then kicks at the pile with the toe of his shoe. “Harry, get off,” he yells above the noise of their struggle and the woman’s shrieks, and Harry does it without hesitating, landing the meat of his palm in the Sheriff’s nose with a crunch that debilitates him long enough for Harry to disentangle himself and get away. Long enough for Nick to take his shot.

The noise of it echoes, and a fan of blood spreads out on the patterned rug where the Sheriff’s body slumps in a heap, bleeding from his nose and the bullet wound in his chest.

For one horrible moment, the woman is silent, staring at Nick and Harry in wordless, nameless terror. Nick uses the space of it to shepherd Harry up onto his feet and pull him towards the door, wiping his fingers quickly and uselessly at the gash weeping blood above Harry's left eye.

When they make it to the porch, her screaming starts up again, a shattered, feral howl that chases them down the steps.

“We’ve got to run,” Nick instructs, and Harry just nods. In an instant they're off, running haltingly away from the pool of light that surrounds the farmhouse, across the dusty scrub grasses and into the darkness that seems to grow all around them.

-

They’re still running several minutes later, unpursued but frantic all the same, when all of a sudden Harry lets out a sharp yelp, startled and pained all at once, and he falls down to one knee before stumbling back to his feet.

“Fuck, ow, Jesus,” he moans, and when Nick doesn't know what he's done, but then he turns, and he sees it: a massive snake, several feet long at least, attached by the mouth to the back of Harry’s right ankle. He must’ve trod right on it in the dark.

“Get it _off, fuck_ ,” Harry yells, kicking his leg ineffectually. The snake is clinging fiercely, though, jaws clenching tighter around the meat of Harry’s ankle, ripping at his Achilles’ tendon.

“Hold on, hold still,” Nick shouts desperately, not sure what to do. He thinks snakes are supposed to bite once and let go, maybe, but this one isn’t, so he looks around frantically while Harry yells more and tries to shake it free to no end. Nick notes, with a sick thankfulness, that it hasn’t got a rattle on the end of its body.

Finally Nick spots a dried-out branch, barely bigger than a twig, but it’ll have to do. He grabs it and tries to poke at the snake, which only seems to enrage it further, its body twisting frantically in an aerial S-shape as it writhes.

It takes several false starts, made more difficult by the fact that Harry is howling in pain and refusing to stand still, but somehow Nick eventually manages to force the stick between the snake’s jaws and Harry’s ankle, and after a bit of frantic prying it finally pulls free, falling to the ground.

Harry tries to leap away from it, but the snake’s taken a chunk of his skin with it -- Nick can see Harry’s blood flowing in the light of the moon, silvery and thick, and when Harry tries to put weight on his foot he stumbles. Nick catches him under the arm and drags them several paces away, watching the snake warily. It stares back at them for a long moment, long enough that Nick is starting to suspect it’s got something supernatural about it, because its gaze is so steady and deliberate. But then it finally, finally slithers off into the night, and they’re alone.

“Can you walk?” Nick asks quietly, breathing heavily.

“Um,” Harry says, testing it out. He crumples a bit at the attempt. “Sure,” he lies.

Nick doesn’t believe him for a moment, and more than anything he wants to stop, wants to stop careening into the night and fields of snakes and whatever else is waiting for them, but he knows they can’t. If they stop, they'll choke, they'll die. He knows it.

So they keep going, barely at a run, Harry limping along beside him, Nick trotting slowly so he doesn’t get too far ahead.

It’s slow going, but after a long while they somehow wind their way back to the road. Nick’s skeptical about starting down it, because it’ll make them easier to find if they’re on the road, of course, but they’re not any safer lost out in the desert, either, the snake had proven that, so he figures it’s the lesser of two evils at this point.

“Hold on, I need to--” Harry gasps out, gesturing down at his bloody ankle, his breath coming in short gasps from the exertion. They haven’t been properly running, but Nick’s a bit out of breath as well anyway, and the simultaneous need to stop and the need to keep going mixes in his stomach, giving him a stitch in his side.

“Yeah, okay,” Nick agrees, and they slump down in the dirt to rest.

“Shit,” Harry breathes, carefully propping up his injured leg. The gash over his eye has mostly clotted, at least. “You shot the Sheriff. Oh God, that’s brilliant.” He laughs and looks horrified all at once, the sound coming out hysterical, and reaches down to prod gingerly as the wound at the back of his heel.

Nick spits out a laugh devoid of any humor. “Yeah, brilliant.” Because it’s not, it's not brilliant, it’s the exact _opposite_ of brilliant, the kind of careless shit they can't afford. The wife will call it in once she gets her senses about her, and every police officer in a hundred mile radius will be after them, hunting them down. And with Harry injured and no car, they’ll have an easy time of it. Nick feels suddenly, hysterically caged in, even though they’re in the middle of a seemingly endless desert. He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand and forces himself to try and think, _think_.

Nothing comes.

“How d’you know if a snake bite is poisonous?” Harry asks quietly after a moment, and there’s something like genuine fear in his face, or at least the closest Nick’s ever seen him get to it.

“You’d probably know by now,” Nick says, not at all confident that it’s the truth. Maybe the snake had been harmless, but -- but maybe there _is_ poison swimming through Harry’s system now, time delayed but ticking closer and closer to death. Maybe every beat of his heart is sending it through him, running him down like a clock.

If so, there’s nothing to be done for it.

Harry accepts the answer, though, just nods and furrows his eyebrows.

“We should keep walking,” Nick says decisively, hoping that if he says it firmly enough, like he thinks it’s a proper plan, it’ll turn into one.

“Okay,” Harry agrees readily. Nick tries to not watch him wince as he rises to his feet.

-

They backtrack, slowly following the road through the dark, picking their way back to their car. It’s just where they'd left it, empty and cool at the edge of the shoulder. They’re silent as they open it and begin rummaging through the contents of the back seat and the trunk, leaving behind everything besides as many of the guns as they can carry, tucked into pockets and waistbands.

Neither of them acknowledges it, but the trunk slamming shut when they’ve finished sounds like an ending, echoing through the air with finality.

-

They go, again, constantly, only stopping when Harry’s ankle gets too bad and he has to sit and grasp at it with his long fingers, like he's trying to physically press out the ache. It can’t be very effective, but every time he smiles at Nick as he rises again afterward, saying “That’s better,” even as he limps.

Nick doesn’t know where they’re going, doesn’t know what they’re looking for, just knows that they need to keep moving to stay alive, hoping that he’ll recognize it when he sees it.

And then he does.

Like an oasis, a small convenience store rises up out of the nothingness, a nearly empty parking lot sprawling around the squat brick building with a garish neon sign on top that just reads “SHOP.”

“There,” Nick says, pointing at it. “You need, like, bandages. We’ll find you some, yeah? And antiseptic, or something.”

Harry grins, a smile that turns into a grimace as his weight comes down on his bad foot. “And antivenom, yeah?” he asks, huffing out a pained laugh.

“Sure,” Nick agrees, lacing their fingers together and guiding Harry towards their goal. “Anything you like.”

-

It’s cramped inside when they push through the door with a chime, the one freckly youth behind the counter the only other living soul there. He glances up as they enter, and Nick can’t help but hesitate, waiting to see if they’ll be recognized, or if their dirty, mangled appearances -- they’re both filthy, sweating messes, and Harry’s leaving a trail of blood behind him as he limps -- draws any attention. He can shoot the kid easily if he does seem to know them, but that takes time and effort and all Nick wants to do right now is get Harry patched up. But the boy just nods aimlessly at them before looking back down at the magazine he’s reading.

Nick guides Harry through the store, his hand pressed against the small of his back, going up and down the aisles carefully until they find the medical supplies way in the back. They’re out of the clerk’s line of vision now, hidden by shelves of canned food and soda, and Harry slumps down to the ground gracelessly, his limbs going boneless as he grimaces.

Nick rummages frantically through the shelves, finally pulling down a box of bandages and gauze as well as a tube of antibacterial cream, and then sits down across from Harry. “Leg up,” he says, and Harry does it easily, thoughtlessly, shifting his weight back onto his hands so he can maneuver his foot into the cradle of Nick’s folded legs.

Nick rips the packaging open and sits there for a moment, a big flummoxed, because there’s a lot of blood, caked down Harry’s ankle and foot, a sticky sheen turning black beneath the wound that’s sluggishly gurgling out more.

“You’re supposed to pay for that,” Harry croaks out, eyes tight as he smiles, and Nick huffs out a laugh.

“Pretty sure shoplifting is the least heinous of our crimes,” he says quietly, and Harry just hums, letting Nick wipe up the blood with the gauze as best he can and inexpertly attach a bandage over it.

“Not a professional job, but,” Nick apologizes, shrugging.

“‘S’perfect,” Harry says, flexing the ankle and only wincing slightly. He scoots around so he’s next to Nick, leaned up against the shelf full of pain pills and surgical tape, the sounds of their breathing the only thing audible over the buzz of the fluorescent lights. It’s almost peaceful.

The sound of sirens is what shatters it.

If it had been like something falling into place when the car had sputtered to death, this is like a key turning in a lock. Nick knows instantly, can feel it in his bones, that they’ve been caught. The first scream of sirens sounds like the clatter of a deadbolt.

“Up, _up_ ,” Nick says, all his gentleness gone now as he tries to get Harry to his feet. He kicks the opened boxes of bandages out of the way as they head back to the front of the store, rushing as quickly as Harry’s limp will allow.

The clerk is gone when they get there, no longer at the counter, but then Nick spots him cowering in the cramped office just beyond it, gazing at them through the glass of the door. He’s on the phone, a look of terror in his eyes as he stares back at Harry at Nick like a caged animal.

“He must have recognized us,” Harry says under his breath, like he’s telling Nick a secret, but Nick can’t focus, the choke of the walls closing in on them stopping him from responding. While he tries to think, Harry gently slides one of the guns out of the waistband of Nick’s jeans and shoots through the glass window embedded in the door to the office until the boy slumps down to the ground. Nick scarcely notices.

“We could stay,” Harry says after a beat. “Make a stand. Could only be one or two of 'em out there, we could try and take ‘em.”

But Nick’s already shaking his head. He can hear a whole volley of sirens, now, closer, the whole cavalry coming down on them, and there’s no way they’re not wildly outnumbered. They have to try and run -- it’s their only shot.

“We have to go,” he says, and they make cautiously for the front door, Nick hoping without much actual belief that the police haven’t arrived to hem them in yet, that they’ll have time to get away.

He doesn’t believe it will be the case, but his heart still sinks when they get within eyeshot of the front windows and see a sea of armed officers in riot gear falling into place, forming a blockade, flanking around the whole of the building. They’re trapped.

“Fuck, shit,” he hisses, hurrying Harry away from the doors and ducking them down so they’re hidden behind a row of metal shelves.

“That’s not good,” Harry agrees, and his voice is calm but his eyes are wild.

They huddle like that for endless minutes, shoulders pressed together, time stretching out viscous and heavy in front of them, the din outside building as more and more forces arrive.

They must have set up some sort of sound system, because suddenly a voice is shouting in at them, amplified a hundred fold, the southern twang ordering them to lay down their weapons ricocheting around them, bouncing off the tiles and the ceiling and into Nick’s brain, jangling madly. _You’re surrounded_ , it tells them. _Surrender_.

The word sends an electric current through Nick that jerks him out of his silence.

“What d’you think, love?” Nick asks. “Shall we surrender?” He feels mad with panic, but then Harry reaches out, gazing at him with those enormous eyes, and grabs Nick’s free hand, squeezing once.

“You’re out of your fucking head if you think that’s how this ends,” Harry says, voice hoarse and raspy. He grins, leans in and presses a violent, bruising kiss to Nick’s lips that’s more teeth than anything, and then yanks him up by the hand. “Let’s make our last stand.”

-

Nick barrels through the door first, guns out, and the scene in front of him when he does is bathed in neon, the green of the store’s sign, the red and blue of the police car lights, everything a blinding, flickering acid trip. There are at least twenty men with guns pointed at them, but none of them shoot -- not until Harry, pulled behind Nick by the hand, takes the first crackling shot, aimed perfectly over Nick’s shoulder and landing in the arm of the nearest officer.

After that, it’s a blur.

They swarm, everyone shouting and grabbing as Harry’s yanked away from Nick bodily by a set of hands. Nick shoots off a round of bullets that goes wild, hardly making any contact, and he only narrowly misses being hit by the retaliatory fire, a bullet grazing his temple like a fiery arrow. He gasps at the sharp pain of it, and when he brings his hand up to swipe at it, it comes away bloody.

There’s a booming blast from a gun off to his left that somehow rises over the cacophony, and when he turns to look, Nick is nearly sick at the sight of Harry, doubled over and howling, clutching at a spreading red stain that’s blooming in the middle of his stomach. His hands clench and he drops his gun inadvertently, and then he’s unarmed, and unsure what to do with himself.

One of the nearest officers uses the moment rush at him, nearly tackling him against the wall but just miscalculating his steps enough so that Nick can jump clear at the last second. He uses the instant before the officer makes another effort to whirl around, trying to find his boy, every mad beat of his heart singing Harry’s name, trying to find him, trying to get to him. His whole body is electrified, pure adrenaline, and he knows this is where he’ll die, and he wants to have Harry with him when it happens.

And then he spots him, pulled several feet away from Nick by the volley of police officers who have gotten between them, and even in the chaos, Nick swears he feels time stop for just an instant when their eyes lock.

Harry is a whirlwind, a storm, furious and screaming. There’s a massive police officer behind him, holding him by the shoulders, one arm over his throat, and he must be more than double Harry’s size but he’s still almost wrenched himself free in his frantic efforts to get to Nick.

He should be still and calm if he doesn’t want to bleed out through the hole in his gut. Nick knows it, in a far off way. The officer who had charged him is back, making another grab at him. Nick twists free, wrenching the man’s arm until he hears the shoulder pop sickeningly, but there are more, so many more, and he can tell they want any excuse to kill them both where they stand. There’s blood dripping down his forehead, stinging his eyes, and everything goes red but then he can’t feel it anyway, can’t feel the kick to his knee that sends his legs out from underneath him, or the officer yanking him up by his hair, twisting his arms violently behind him and locking them in handcuffs. He can’t hear anything, can’t feel anything, the only thing he can see is Harry, screaming and wild and beautiful, and Harry shouldn’t fight it, shouldn’t get his pulse up if he wants to live, but Nick can’t bear the thought of Harry going quietly. He wants to watch him fight until the very end.

There’s a heavy, shattering blow on the back of skull and as his vision swims he realizes he must’ve landed an elbow in the officer who’s got him handcuffed’s soft belly. He feels himself slump and collapses down, his knees bending at a wrong angle and scraping on the pavement, stained red with blood and flickering in the sick neon green light.

“Don’t you dare give up, love,” is the last thing Nick can gasp out, blood pooling in his mouth, before there’s a final resounding thud on the back of his head with the handle of a pistol, and his vision blacks out.

 

\----------

 

 

_starkville correctional facility_

As it turns out, you can get rather used to prison. Nick hadn’t thought that would be the case, but here he is.

It probably helps that by the time they were dragged in, they’re the most notorious pair in the country. Possibly the world. In the last several months Nick’s seen his own face on television more times than he can even begin to count, and he doesn’t bother trying to disguise the smug feeling of satisfaction that courses through him like electricity every time.

After their arrest, their transport from the hospital to the maximum security prison had set a television viewing record, or at least that’s what he’s heard. Privately, he thinks he couldn’t be more pleased with that if he’d orchestrated the whole thing himself. Ideally, of course, they wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place, would still be on the endless road driving towards a horizon they can never catch. But if they had to be caught, the way it’d happened had been perfect, really, or at least if not the actual capture -- Nick still feels his pulse spike hot and twisting when he thinks about Harry, shot in the stomach and screaming like a banshee -- the aftermath had been. There’d been masses, absolute masses, during the transfer and its live coverage, loads of them protesters with signs calling for him to hang, calling them monsters, out for their blood. But there had been the others, too, the ones who shrieked in joy when Nick was led out of the police van and through the prison gates. They’d had his face on shirts. They’d had _signs_ , posterboard with glitter on it, his and Harry’s names both scrawled on them in hot pink, decorated with hearts.

It's like being a rockstar, Nick thinks, and he loves it. Plenty of people think he’s a monster, yeah, but the thing is, they all still watch him. They all still know his name, know Harry, know what they’d done, and whether they’re fascinated or repulsed, they still can’t look away. It’s almost poetry to Nick, that.

During the transfer, Harry’d been brought around back, he’d heard later, because he’d needed a medical crew to transport him after they’d stitched up the gunshot wound in his gut, but even then, two camera crews had found out about it and filmed the whole thing. Nick’s seen bits of it on the television that’s mounted behind thick glass in the cafeteria, and the sight makes his heart want to burst with pride.

In the soundless video, Harry’s straining to sit up on the gurney he’s being wheeled in on, still too messed up even for a wheelchair, apparently. He’s saying Nick’s name over and over, asking where Nick is, his face thin and pale and perfect, his hair sticking straight out from his head at every angle. He nearly jerks himself free from the restraints and several more guards rush into frame, pressing him back down.

That’s when Harry notices the cameras that have found him, and his whole face changes the second he does. His mouth curls into a grin, and although there’s no sound, he clearly says “fuck off,” and then in an instant, jerks forward, smashing his forehead into the mouth of one of his guards, sending the man back with a jolt. There’s blood on Harry’s forehead, and the guard is staggering, clutching at his face, and three more guards pop up to take his place. Harry grins into the camera the whole time, eyes unblinking.

Nick loves him more than ever.

-

The worst part is being apart from Harry, of course. Prison itself is fine, the wait for their trial hardly worth noticing, since there’s nothing he can do about it, and it’s all tied up indefinitely, a maze of hoops to jump through anyway. It’ll be ages, likely. Nick doesn’t mind it much, on the whole -- he certainly doesn’t mind having an air of notoriety about him, even among the rest of the inmates, who are all notorious enough in their own regard. They generally give him a wide berth, so he’s free to do as he pleases, more or less -- he sleeps, and thinks, and occasionally talks the sole tolerable guard, a blonde lad, into letting him have a cigarette or a book.

He knows Harry’s near, holed up in the same complex, but they’re not allowed anywhere near each other. At night, Nick tries to send out some sort of radar, hoping to sense Harry in proximity to him, to recognize his heat signature or the scent of him on the wind, any scrap at all. It doesn’t quite work, but still helps to make the distance between them feel a bit less gaping. Just a bit.

-

The bloke is back today. The psychologist, or whatever his title is, Nick can’t quite remember. He remembers his name -- Liam -- and generally doesn’t mind their little get-togethers. Liam is gentle and serene, a strange oasis of calm in the chaos of the general prison, and it’s not that Nick doesn’t thrive on the chaos, but it’s an interesting change, anyway.

“How’s it going today, Liam?” Nick asks easily as he slides into the plastic molded chair across the bolted-down table from Nick. He knows how this goes -- he knows how to handle everyone in the place, from the impotent, faceless guards to the looming warden, and even Liam, strange, soft Liam.

“I’m actually supposed to be asking you that,” Liam says pleasantly. He has a yellow pad of paper aligned precisely on the table between them, an uncapped bottle of water and a flexible pen arranged parallel with it. Honestly, Nick can’t imagine why the precautions are necessary -- what’s he honestly going to do with the cap to a bottle of water, _honestly_. Although, alright, there had been that one thing with a pen, but that had been with the bloke before Liam, a nasty bald little git that Nick had loathed on sight and even worse when he’d made a smart comment about Harry. So maybe the safety pen is fair play after all.

“Don’t surprise I have many secrets in here,” Nick drawls, draping an arm over the back of his chair. It’s also bolted down, although less severely than the table. It’s overkill, because he likes Liam just fine -- he’s neutral and pleasant in a way that usually grates on Nick, but it’s so incongruous in this context that it becomes very nearly charming. He hasn’t got even the slightest urge to bash his head in with his chair. “You probably know better than I do.”

“I know _what_ you’ve been doing, yeah,” Liam agrees. “Dunno _how_ you’re doing, though.”

Nick just shrugs. Liam’s the psychologist. He ought to be able to figure it out.

“You were in another fight, I hear,” Liam says neutrally, like he hasn’t any horse in the race, totally indifferent to Nick bashing a bloke in the face with a cafeteria tray. Like he’s commenting on the weather.

“Well,” Nick says, examining his nails. _Most_ people stay out of Nick’s way. The bloke he’d beaten, a new transfer, apparently hadn’t gotten that message, and had been out to prove something in his first week. Nick had almost felt sorry for the sorry git when his teeth has been skittering around the concrete floor of the cafeteria, because he supposes there _is_ something quietly unassuming about him. He certainly looks out of place among the other inmates. It’s just that most of them have learned he’s unassuming in the same way as a snake is -- quietly coiled until it strikes, poisonous.

Anyway. This bloke had the message now. Nick had only gotten three days in solitary, which was scarcely punishment anyway. There’s only one person Nick cares if he sees or not, and he hasn’t, not in months. And unless this conversation has anything to do with him, Nick’s not particularly interested in continuing it, so he doesn’t elaborate on the fight.

They watch each other silently for a bit, Nick lazily, Liam carefully. Eventually, Liam picks up his pen, draws one thick, straight line on the paper, and then sets it back down.

“D’you know I’m supposed to make my recommendation soon?” he says to Nick, raising his eyebrows slightly.

“Figured as much,” Nick says. “So what’re you planning to say?”

“Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you,” Liam says calmly. “If you are a sociopath, y’know, it’d just be an opportunity for you to try and manipulate me into believing you aren’t. Or so they say.”

Nick laughs at that, because it’s such a _Liam_ answer he can hardly stand it.

“Alright,” he says. “No official diagnosis, then. At least give me a hint, though.” He leans forward and spreads his long fingers on the tabletop. “D’ _you_ think I’m crazy?”

Liam cocks his head and peers at him. “No,” he says. “Not particularly.”

It surprises Nick, at least a little.

“Then what am I?” he asks. It’s a bit fascinating, trying to sort out how Liam sees him.

Liam considers before he answers, and when he does, it’s very careful. “Interesting,” he finally says. “I think you’re interesting.” He pauses. “And possibly a bit evil, but that’s not exactly a medical diagnosis.”

Nick laughs again. He really does like Liam. “Hardly,” he agrees.

Liam smiles, and while his eyes are still crinkling, Nick asks the only question he has for him. “Have you seen him?”

Liam’s smile lessens, but doesn’t drop completely. “You know I have,” he answers. Nick does -- he knows that Liam comes to see him Mondays and Thursdays, but Wednesdays and Saturdays he treks to the opposite cell block, the long term isolation wing. Harry’s antics during the transfer had gotten him chucked in there at first, and apparently he’d repeated them enough to make it permanent after the third guard he’d send to the med wing.

Nick suspects, too, that it’s also a means of punishing him. The warden is petty and unimaginitive in the worst ways.

“And,” Nick says, licking his lips. “Is he -- how is he?”

“Also not supposed to tell you,” Liam says, and he sounds almost sorry about it.

“Don’t suppose you could anyway, then? In general terms, I mean, just... basics.”

“He’s the same,” Liam offers. “Mood swings. Occasional violent outbursts. Asks after you all the time.”

“They’ll transfer him again, won’t they,” Nick says, asking even though he knows the answer.

“‘S’not my decision,” Liam says, vaguely apologetic. “But yeah, I reckon so.”

It’s pretty much been decided that Harry’s the mental one, a foregone conclusion they’ll deem him insane and lock him up in a psychiatric ward for the rest of his life. Nick’s own status is up in the air -- it seems that no one can quite decide if they want him to be mental as well, or just a standard fare evil bastard.

Either way. No one will tell them if they’ll be extradited to be tried back home for doing in Harry’s bloke, or left here, where their list of charges is exponentially longer. But either way, he supposes, Harry’ll be sent to an asylum -- it seems inevitable. Even if Nick eventually is as well, once that happens, well. He won’t see him again.

He sighs, and Liam picks up his pen.

-

Nick thinks a lot about fate. He thinks about seeing Harry that first time in the bar, all bright eyes and dark hair and hunched shoulders, steadfastly ignoring the bloke -- the bloke whose name Nick has never learned, he realizes -- as he orbits nearer and nearer to Nick, their destinies coming closer together until they become so tangled up as the be the same. Possibly they always have been tangled up, and they’d just been marking time, waiting to find each other.

Now he waits a bit more, because -- because he’s not got much else to do, if he’s being honest. He has to wait, has to believe that the same strong, unknowable force that blew them together in the first place will do it again. It probably seems naive, blindly hopeful, but he remembers the shape of Harry’s lips when he’d whispered the word “fate” when they’d flown to America, held together above the clouds. He remembers that, remembers Harry, and waits for their destiny to arrive, telling himself that when it does, he’ll recognize it, grab it and not let go.

-

He waits, and waits, and then suddenly he’s not waiting anymore.

Afterward, they try to say he’s orchestrated the whole thing, which is flattering, but so far outside his skillset to be laughable. He’s with Liam, when it happens, in the same room with the same bolted-down table and chairs, the same calm smile playing on the edge of Liam’s mouth, when from deep beneath them, like a giant waking up, the sirens start to scream.

Liam’s off his feet in an instant, gesturing at Nick to stay in his chair, not that Nick has any plans to go leaping around in ankle shackles and double cuffs. He just raises an eyebrow, curious, while Liam fumbles his radio on, trying to sort out what’s happening.

Nick hears, between the crackling static, snatches of words -- _mobilized_ and _C-Block_ and _officers down_. That’s when he stands up.

As he does, the door to the room opens, and the guard -- the blonde one Nick likes -- is leaning in, a frantic tint to his cheeks, slightly out of breath.

“Liam,” he pants, shaking his head. “Get ‘im up, we’ve got to move the two of you while the stairs are clear.” He nods at Nick.

Liam frowns, the calm slipping from his face for the first time Nick’s ever seen. “Niall?” he asks uncertainly. “What’s going on?”

“Two groups,” Niall explains, holding the door open so they can shuffle through, Liam first and the Nick, Niall behind him. “One in the rec yard, one unit transferring from yard detail, there was a scuffle--” He waves his hands vaguely, still trying to shuttle Liam and Nick like ducks in a line through the empty hall just outside the room and to the metal staircase that will lead them down to a holding cell and processing offices. “It escalated,” he says.

Nick hears, then, over the sirens, the din of a hoard of voices, all mingled together, angry and on the move.

So a riot, he thinks.

Niall explains how it’d started to Liam as they hurry down the stairs, his hands flapping ineffectually as they go, but Nick doesn’t hear it, because it’s back, suddenly -- the itch in his fingers, the need to act, the same one he’d felt in the bar back in London. He knows, breathlessly, suddenly, that this is the moment, can feel it in the air like an electric current, sharpening his nerves and tensing his muscles.

At the bottom of the stairs there are five holding rooms all in a row, and Niall’s leading them to the furthest, ostensibly to stow Nick somewhere before he does the same with Liam so he can run towards the fray, wherever it is. Another wall of guard rushes past them, pressing Nick up against the wall for a moment as they go, totally unaware of the three of them, it seems, and then they’re gone, their footfalls mingling with the far-off shouts. After a moment, he hears gunfire.

When they’re outside the last door, one more stray guard rounds on them.

“Toss that one in there,” he says brusquely, scowling at Nick in a way that feels distinctly personal. Nick doesn’t recognize him, specifically, but he’s suited up in riot gear, which might be disguising him. Nick doesn’t particularly care, though, because this is when he needs to move -- this is the moment when he has to reach out and snatch the hand that fate’s offering. It doesn’t matter who the guard is -- all that matters, now, is acting, after so much waiting.

He times it, waiting until the four of them are all crowded up in the doorway. There’s a half second when they all shift, unsure, waiting to see who’ll go through first, and in that instant, the spare guard’s gun drops -- just an inch, just enough, and that’s when Nick moves, grabbing at the barrel of the gun and jerking it up so the butt smashes into the guard’s face. In ordinary circumstances, he’d never have stood a chance, but the guard is distracted enough that he’s off his game. He shouts, his grips weakens, and Nick uses it to wrench the gun away.

Liam’s unarmed, but by the time Nick’s twisted the second guard around so the gun is pressed solidly against his temple, Niall’s drawn his as well, leveling it square at Nick’s face. The guard is between them, and Niall looks like he’s calculating whether he’ll be able to shoot Nick between the eyes without risking him as collateral damage.

“Nick,” he says calmly. “Don’t be stupid, now.”

“Sorry, mate,” he says, pressing in more firmly, scraping the skin at the guard’s temple with the muzzle until it’s raw. He’s silent, a murderous look twisting his face around, at least as far as Nick can tell from where he’s got him. Nick has the upper hand, and it’s a visceral thrill when he realizes it.

“It’s nothing personal,” Nick says, because it’s _not_ , fate’s not personal. This is what he’s got to do, is all. “But I’ll shoot if I have to, and I’d rather not, so go ahead and take my cuffs off, yeah? Legs too.”

Niall stares at him, an impassable expression on his face as he considers, and in that instant he looks too young for this place by a mile. After a moment, he lowers the weapon, and moves forward to cautiously unlock Nick’s hands and feet.

“Cheers,” Nick says, flexing an ankle idly once he’s done. The cuffs clatter uselessly to the floor, and he thinks for a moment before kicking the guard at the back of the knees so he buckles to the ground. “Pick ‘em up,” he instructs, shoving the three of them backwards into the holding room once he does.

“Lock him to the table, yeah?” he instructs Niall. He stays silent, and Nick knows that behind his calmly schooled expression, he’s scanning Nick, trying to sort out his plan, his method, any weakness. He hopes he won’t have to shoot Niall. He will if he has to.

Niall does it, though, looping the chain of the cuff through the metal ring lodged in the concrete table before pushing gently at the other guard until he sits down, furiously putting out his hands and allowing Niall to snap the metal around them.

“Alright, then,” Nick says after a moment, looking around the room. He feels manic, his brain running too fast and his hands moving too slow, and he tries to plot out what’s next, how to play this hand the way he’s meant to. “So you’ll stay here,” he says to the cuffed guard, “and we’ll be on our way.” He gestures with the gun for Liam and Niall to head for the door in front of him. “Your gun, though, Niall, c’mon,” he says, halting them.

“‘Course, yeah,” he agrees easily, an easy lilt to his voice that’s only betrayed by the cautious, calculating look on his face. He kneels, slides his gun across the floor to Nick, who bends to scoop it up while keeping the first gun still trained on Niall, and then smiles, easily and friendly. He’s going along with it because he hasn’t got a choice, Nick knows, and he reminds himself not to underestimate him.

Liam hasn’t said anything, but he’s got the same expression as Niall -- trying to look neutral, even friendly, and it must be a tactic, to make the murderer with the gun think you’re on his side, same as Niall’s trying to do, but Nick can work with that. He’ll burn the whole place down if that’s what needs to be done, but if they can all play nice long enough to get out the door without having to put a bullet in either of them, that’s what he’s aiming for. 

But it’s just an idle hope, he thinks, a passing desire for the path of least resistance to get him where he needs to go. His pulse is thrumming _Harry, Harry, Harry_. He can feel the walls that stand between them coming unmoored, crumbling in the chaos, and everything else is secondary.

“Alright, lads,” he says, trying to infuse his voice with something easy-going. “Let’s walk.”

-

For several minutes they’re alone in the halls, the sounds of the riot going on away from them, removed, and it’s almost eerie, the ghosts of an unseen confrontation echoing invisibly around them. Nick keeps one gun pressed against Niall’s neck in front of him, and the second aimed at Liam, a half step off to their left. It’s almost easy, and Nick’s reminded of all the other people whose lives he’s watched snuff out, how disarmingly easy it all is sometimes, easier than you’d ever suspect. Perhaps walking out of prison is the same.

First, though, they’ve got to walk further in.

When they push through the double set of doors to the central yard, though, they’re in the middle of it in an instant.

A mass of guards on the north side has set up a blockade, a wall of riot shields between them and two hundred loosed prisoners as they aim wild rounds into the thick of it. Nick swears and pulls the three of them behind a column, recalculating.

“Jesus,” Niall mutters in horrified awe. Liam just nods. “How’d they override the locks, _Jesus_.”

Nick spares a second to wonder at the same thing -- all of B-Block’s cells stand wide open, the iron bars useless as picket fences. There must be a mastermind here, Nick realizes, someone who’d set the first sparks of the fire, sent out rumors, fanned the flames as they’d spread, because the chaos is too orchestrated to be truly chaotic. There’s a method behind it, distinct threads of purpose in the way people are moving. Nick glances out from around the column and sees so much _blood_ , a slew of shot-down guards and prisoners alike, and it’s so _much_ , the wild purpose of it making his blood sing, a song he knows by heart. He uses it to focus, schooling his mind into planning their next steps.

“Niall,” he asks. “Isolation -- can we get there?” His gun is still trained on Niall because Niall is still a guard, they’re still on opposite sides of an uncrossable chasm, but here, behind this column, separated from the rest of the fray, he thinks they might be able to work together, just for a moment.

Niall considers. “Dunno. Maybe if, like --” He peeks around the column and jerks back when a bullet whizzes by, clanging off the column a foot above his head. Nick can’t tell if it’d come from the guards or the prisoners. He supposes it hardly matters. “Main route’s fucked. Utility hall could do, though.”

He doesn’t bother to ask why they’re going to isolation, so Nick assumes it’s obvious.

“Well then,” Nick says, regripping his guns. “That’s what we’ll try.”

“We?” Liam asks.

“No, I’m goin’ in there--” Niall starts, nodding towards the standoff happening past the column.

“Go,” Nick instructs them both, not listening. Liam’s good leverage if he needs it, and Niall’s a guard -- even if he’s got a riot to deal with, Nick hardly thinks he’ll let him walk off on his own. So they’ll all go together. Niall’s got the keys, in any case.

The trace back towards the empty hall they’d come from, and after a few false starts, Niall pulls them through a narrow door and into a service corridor. The hoard must have come this way at some point, oddly, because there are the bodies of two officers and four prisoners strewn around like broken dolls, smears of blood slick underneath them. Liam is silent, looks horror-struck and a bit sick, and Niall shakes his head and swears under his breath before the three of them begin picking their way down the hall. It’s empty now, at least, empty of anyone living, and Nick thanks small wonders, sees the thin weave of fate all around them.

They don’t see anyone for several silent, tense moments, and Nick almost -- _almost_ \-- suspects their luck will hold out.

When they round into the last stretch of service corridor and stumble back into the open, though, they’re suddenly swarmed.

A barrage of gunfire flies past them, sending them ducking underneath a bloody, overturned mattress. The large room is bathed in an eerie green emergency light, giving everything an alien feeling. Nick feels outside of himself suddenly, like he’s watching it all happen from somewhere above. He sees himself shove Niall and then Liam in turn behind an enormous prisoner covered in sweat and blood, using him as a human shield to barrel past the last throng of guards. The shield bloke takes four shots to the stomach before he goes down, but as he does they’re around the last corner, out of the fray, through two more doors and finally, _finally_ in front of the isolation cells. From above, Nick watches himself squeeze a final round of bullets into the skulls of the two guards still posted there, too frazzled to react in time, their blood painting the concrete wall behind them brightly. He watches himself -- he doesn’t hesitate for a moment.

In the moment after that, he crashes back to himself.

The din still rings behind them, but suddenly the room is silent, the only sound Liam’s choking gasps as he gazes in shock at the fallen guards. He bites off the sound and then looks down, scrubbing at a smear of blood across his neat white shirt like he can force it out.

“You killed ‘em,” Niall says quietly, and Nick rolls his eyes despite himself, gesturing Niall and Liam over.

“They’re hardly the first.” He points at the downed guards. “Find his keys.”

He keeps one gun aimed generally back at them while they hesitate and then kneel, rummaging through the corpses’ key rings, but looks away long enough to peer into each of the cell windows in turn. His blood is singing, his hands tingle, he’s so _close_ and he could scream because now that Harry’s near -- he is, he can _feel_ him -- it’s worse than ever to be separated, a shrieking pain from somewhere inside him, the very deepest part.

It’s the third cell, turns out. He presses his face against the smudged glass of the third cell, and then -- and then he’s there, and Nick can’t believe it, Harry’s there, real and alive, skin and flesh and bone, curled up on his cot, barefoot, lips moving slowly. Nick can’t hear, but it looks like he’s singing.

“The keys, c’mon,” he shouts back at Niall, but there’s no response. Nick turns, and freezes, because Niall and Liam are both on their feet, now. Niall’s got a ring of keys in his hand, but that’s not all -- he’s also got a gun, the one he’d taken off the fallen guard, the one Nick _stupidly_ didn't take, too distracted by the proximity of Harry’s heartbeat echoing in his bones.

“Give ‘em here,” Niall says calmly, gesturing at the guns Nick’s still clutching.

“He’s so close,” Nick says, mostly to himself. It comes out desperate, and he regrets it instantly.

“I know,” Niall agrees. “Give ‘em.” His aim is steady, and Nick knows he’ll shoot, won’t hesitate. He feels wild, honestly caged for the first time. He can _see_ Harry, can see him when really he shouldn’t have ever laid eyes on him again, and this can't be how this ends. This can't be it.

“Alright,” he agrees, defeated. “Alright.”

He kneels to slide the guns to Niall, and just as he’s about to touch the floor, jerks them back up. His right hand squeezes the trigger and the bullet sinks into Niall’s knee with a sickening crunch.

“Fuck,” Niall swears, and he shoots in response but Nick’s shoving forward now, and the bullets Niall gets out before Nick’s taking him down at his injured knee go just wide. Just barely. Nick feels the breeze as they pass, and gasps.

He’d honestly thought Niall would hit target.

He’d thought that he would die. It’s almost startling when he realizes he hasn’t.

He shakes his head to clear it. Niall is collapsed underneath him, his knee bloodied and twisted, swearing and red-faced.

“Jesus, _Jesus_ ,” Liam is muttering behind them, his hands wringing in panic, and even further back there are the shots and bangs of the riot, moving away but still there, but Nick can’t hear it. There’s nothing he can focus on besides getting Niall’s gun away, yanking the spare cuffs from his belt. Niall curses again, softer this time.

“You get down here too,” Nick instructs Liam softly. “Next to Niall, there you are.” Liam sinks to his knees softly, looking horrified, eyes reflecting Nick’s wild face back at him. “Hands out.”

Nick cuffs them together, tight. It won’t keep them, won’t hold them to their spot, but he thinks that’s alright -- cuffing them to the door would be a death sentence if the riot reaches them, and he can’t bring himself to condemn them like that despite it all. He’s got all the guns away from Niall, all four of them, so there shouldn’t be anymore surprises.

“Just stay,” he instructs. “Listen. I don’t want to shoot you again, okay, so don’t make me.”

Neither one responds, twin silent stares looking up at him, and Nick takes that for an agreement.

He plucks the key ring away from Niall, and hands shaking, fits the largest one into the lock of the door to the third cell door.

Harry jerks to his feet like a frightened animal as the door pushes open, leaping up to perch on the far corner of his metal cot with a feral look in his eyes, but when Nick steps in he goes limp, a puppet whose strings have been cut.

“Nick?” he asks disbelievingly, and for a moment, Nick doesn’t even know the answer -- he might be Nick, possibly, but his heart is beating so fast there’s no way for him to be sure.

Harry’s thinner, if that’s possible, his face gaunt, hair longer and a bit lank where it’s shoved off his face in untidy waves. There’s something almost ethereal about his face, like he’s seeing something otherworldly, and for a moment Nick hesitates -- just a moment, just enough to memorize the sight of him.

And then Harry’s leaping off the cot, careening the three steps across the small room to hurl himself at Nick, pressing their lips together and digging his long fingers sharply into Nick’s hips. Everything else falls away.

-

They walk out the front door. They walk out the front fucking door of the prison and there are so many waves of prisoners and wounded officers and state police and onlookers pressing in that they slide into it easily, two anonymous bodies in a sea of a thousand, a thousand that feels like a million.

When they’re clear of the mob they run, their own two feet pounding against the hot sun-bleached pavement and then, later, an empty dirt road. Nick’s voice goes hoarse with laughing because no one’s looking at them, no one _sees_ because the world is falling down around them, and they’re running through the flames.

After a time that Nick thinks could be ten minutes or ten hours, a cavalcade of sirens swoops past them. They dive into a ditch on the side of the road but none of the police cars even feign towards a stop -- Nick doesn’t know if they’d stop even if they’d seen them at all, probably needed more desperately elsewhere. Still, they crouch in the ditch together for a long time, the noise and panic steady behind them. There’s a low thud of explosion after a while, another battery of shrieking sirens, but in the ditch it’s quiet and still, Harry’s breath sweet and hot against Nick’s neck where he’s clinging to him fiercely.

“Nick,” he whispers eventually. “Look.”

Across the open road, there’s a van.

There’s a van, abandoned, lights still on and engine idly. One door hangs open uselessly, and it must’ve been left in a hurry, because the radio is still whispering softly.

There’s an idling van and Nick laughs, again, harder than he’s ever laughed before, positively doubling over at the joy of it, the absurd perfect kismet of divine intervention. Harry joins in with him in the next instant, his throaty rasp the most beautiful music Nick’s ever heard, and then he takes Nick gently by the hand, yanking them out of the ditch and pulling him towards their getaway.

Harry clambers into the driver’s seat when they reach it, and pauses to reverently drag the palms of his hands over the steering wheel. The next instant they’re shooting down the road, flying away from the noise and the chaos, the apocalypse shrinking behind them.

“Jesus,” Harry whispers as he drives. The sun shines in through the windows and he squints his eyes against it, smiling his sharp smile, and Nick has to kiss him, leans across the center seat to bite at the curve of his lips. The van swerves and then straightens in response.

“We did it,” Harry says.

“Yeah,” Nick says, feeling awed at it all. Everything feels new and reborn, an unimaginable lightness buoying them as they race, west and west and west.

It’s truly endless this time, Nick thinks, there’s nothing to stop them, no earth or sky or horizon, just the vast world, all theirs, barren and beautiful. All theirs.

“I knew it,” Harry says, “I knew we would. It’s fate, like you said.”

“Fate,” Nick agrees. “Brought us together, didn’t it? Couldn’t keep us apart.”

“Never,” Harry agrees. He looks at Nick, once, smiling, the lines of his face lit up in the setting sun, wild and beautiful and free. He smiles, and they drive.


End file.
